I’m watching Buffy for the first time in two years. I’m excited. I dug up the summary that I started for this one, but I don’t know what it will become from here. 

Sunnydale High’s student events continue to be the worst, corralling everyone into a Career Week that’s just as meaningless as the Scoobies think it is. Unfortunately, just like the foreign exchange student episode, this one probably reflects some sad reality of American high schools (again, I didn’t go to one so I don’t know firsthand). People expect teenagers to make important decisions about their lives but won’t offer them the tools they need for it. 

Nobody gets anything out of the experience, except that Xander wants to go to “Principal School,” and now so do I. Even Willow and Oz don’t have the career fair to thank for getting them into the same room, since the guys from the Wolfram & Hart software company (come on, you know it’s true) say they've got nothing to do with it.

As a backdrop to Buffy's melancholy over her future, though, it makes sense and I like the way Plot A is constructed over this two-parter and Plot B follows along with it. The one thing that I'm not really keen on is the Monster(s) of the Week(s), who don't really live up to the threat they're supposed to be. I mean, if the Order of Taraka won't stop coming until the job is done, where are they now? I can accept that they were relatively easy kills, since the idea is that they’re replaced each time one goes down, but is there some canon explanation for them never getting replaced after the third one and never mentioned again? 

Buffy Is the Title: The first issue of the Season 9 comics was one of the few written by Joss, which meant it had some of the best dialogue, especially for Buffy. She references this episode while she’s drunkenly fangirling at the cops who have shown up for a noise violation during her housewarming party: “...And I scored best as a police cop! That was what my aptitude scored as!”

I always loved that line just for the sake of its adorable redundancies, but now I kind of appreciate it on another level, too. Who would have thought that Buffy would someday want to share the memories from this dumb career fair? That she’d actually be excited by having something in common with law enforcement? But it’s so true to life, the rose-colored glasses, and the officers are shown dancing with her in the next panel, so clearly they could see what a good sincere heart she has beneath her party fever.

And actually, the episode puts that into focus too. When Xander prompts Willow and Buffy to tell him he's not stupid, Buffy comes through with such solemnity in her expression and voice that it warms me all over. I mean it. So does she.

The Buffy and Angel Show: So, we're all agreed that it's a sign of the fundamental unfairness of the universe that we never got to see Buffy and Angel skate together, right? Especially since David Boreanaz can skate! Oh well, at least Buffy looks great on her own. And I wrote a fic about it, long long ago, linked at the end of this entry.

Since it's a big B/A episode I ought to have a lot to say about them but all of it seems pretty obvious; I swoon where I'm expected to swoon. I did pull out a shooting script quote from the ice rink scene since I liked the way it solidified Angel's emotions:

          Buffy turns his face back to hers. Tenderly runs her fingers along his transformed features. Angel is overwhelmed.              Nobody has ever touched him like this.

Also, I love how they don’t even consider the option that they can go to a skating rink when it’s open. Is it a mirror issue? Trying to dodge the admission fee? Or just another case of habit?

Other than that, I'm actually more interested in Angel himself this time, since it's also an important step in his personal character arc. Therefore, onto a new category...

Angel Is More Than a Boyfriend: He's finally taking the initiative to do something on his own and it's awesome. Granted, he's doing it because of Buffy, but now he doesn't need to wait for her to tell him how best to love her. He uses sources only he can use, does things she couldn't do, keeps his secrets out of pragmatism instead of shame. Then he gets attacked by Kendra and Buffy has to come save him, but the right intentions were in place!

A bit before that we get, "I lurk," his explanation for how he knows what's going on at Buffy's school. I'm glad she takes this in stride, as it shouldn't surprise her that he hangs around places where he can absorb some of her daylight life without being seen, but it's a sad (though still funny) moment expressing his dual nature as much as the mirror does.

Welcome Willy the Snitch, a two-dimensional character but a fairly funny and appealing one, and great for establishing mythology and other characters. His first scene tells us a little about Willy but a lot about Angel, who inspires fear as soon as he's recognized. You can't effectively run an underworld bar if you're just automatically afraid of vampires, so what is it about this one particularly? He even knows Angel has a soul! Shouldn't that make him less scary?

There's history there, and it just gets better when Spike comes up and Angel takes responsibility for him, too. From now on Angel is his own man, he's serious business, and I want to hear the stories behind each and every piece of art in his apartment.

Spike and Dru, Dru and Spike: We get another glimpse into what Spike is like in a relationship, and it's both familiar and depressing. Drusilla annoys him, he snaps at her, she whimpers, he's suddenly fawning over her. He doesn't want her interrupting him while he's doing something he perceives as important, but as soon as she shows that he has the power to hurt her -- this is the good stuff. This is what he likes. He takes care of her and their respective roles are reestablished. 

Later we'll see that Spike prefers a woman who can kick his ass, which may seem to contradict his need to be the boss, but with or without his soul we never see him content with anyone but Dru. Why? She <i>is</i> stronger than him, but her madness makes her need help anyway (or appear to need help, which is just as good as far as Spike is concerned). She and Spike are uniquely suited to each other, not because what they have is healthy -- they're evil, healthy is a moot point -- but because she fulfills all of Spike's fantasies at once. She's above him: older, more gifted, closer to the source; but instead of contemptuously rejecting him, she depends on him. Next time he finds a woman above him, this will not work out so well.

I never noticed before that Dru says she needs to change Miss Edith. Apparently her dolls pee.

My Willow Tree: Can't think of anything to say about her here, but fortunately she's got more coming up in the next one, and so does Oz.

Xander and Bus Stations: Xander is apparently not bad with the research - Buffy is singled out as the one whose only real function during research parties is to get the snacks, but the guy who sucks at every subject in school is himself a snack recipient. From what I can remember, that actually tracks throughout the series, and now I'm finding it interesting. Not that I ever thought he was dumb; it's just not a skill you'd expect him to have.

Giles and Objects: After Buffy let Giles believe she was just going home to rest up for the next day, do you think he wondered why she was with Angel when she was attacked by the first Taraka guy? At least she didn't lie about it (as far as we know).

Time for some script quotes! Drusilla sings a little song, and we even have lyrics for it.

          INT. FACTORY - NIGHT
         Speaking of vamps… Here's DRUSILLA - wrapped in a black shawl and looking even paler than usual. She stands at              one end of the long dining table, laying out TAROT CARDS. She is humming, swaying-

          DRUSILLA
          (sings/discordant)
          I HEAR MUSIC AND THERE'S NO
          ONE THERE… ALL NIGHT LONG
          I SEEM TO WALK ON AIR… I
          WONDER WHY, I WONDER WHY…

Kendra gets a pretty badass introduction. I'd object to the animalistic way she's described except that at this point we're supposed to believe she's the Jaguar of the Taraka.

          We stop on an ETHNIC YOUNG WOMAN, her feline, feral eyes getting used to the sudden light. She's a predator, a              hunter, and her name is KENDRA. And as she jumps out of frame, onto the tarmac -

And here's one for Willy the Snitch:

        A solitary stooped figure gives the floor a perfunctory once-over with a stiff broom. This is WILLY, a shifty-eyed                    bottom-dweller. In addition to being the bartender here, he's a small time hustler who moves in the underworld of             the vampires - despite the fact that he is not a vamp himself.

Notes:

• I also come down on the side of shrubs.
• According to the script, the Cyclops Taraka guy is named Octarus.
• Scooby Gang invoked for the first time!
• All the times they made a cemetery out of their limited outdoor set space, and this is the first time I’m noticing how close the headstones are to the road. I guess the bodies are under the pavement?
• Kendra attacks Buffy with a hatchet. I know Slayers are supposed to be proficient with all weapons, but seriously, she thought she was a vampire! What happened to stakes? 

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• Fic - Pair Skating

Many years in the future, a comic series called Angel and Faith (featured above, in case that isn't clear) will draw heavily on "The Dark Age" and expand on the lore for the demon Eyghon. Reluctantly, I've gone back to my old comic reviews to sift through them for anything particularly relevant or interesting. I haven't given myself the complete picture of Rupert Giles that I hoped for, but I did make special note of one line which he allegedly said in the past: "What the denizens of Hell refuse to accept is that damnation is, at some point, a choice."

The Giles that we see in the present day is ready to take responsibility for his own choices. He may even take it too far, but we see his best side as well as his worst here: he knows that he brought his own doom on himself, and his utmost priority is to keep it from hurting anyone else. If he knew what show he was in he would understand the futility in that, but it's still good to see him stepping up to take care of his loved ones. The spotlight is on his relationships with Buffy and Jenny, so we end up learning more about both of them, too.

Buffy Is the Title: Call me a fuddy-duddy but I have absolutely no sympathy for Buffy's terrible aerobicizing music. Why does she even need to do standard human exercise routines? Why does she need to bother Giles with it? Isn't this one activity she can safely do at home without making her mother suspicious?  Has she ever heard of headphones? Or how about just turning it down low enough that you can still hear someone being gruesomely murdered right outside the door? YOUR MUSIC KILLED PHILLIP, BUFFY.

Fortunately, for all that Buffy is totally lame in this episode (in the sense of taste, not character -- she's brave and caring as always) and I mostly can't relate at all, she does give me a blip of nostalgia for the Gavin Rossdale namecheck. He was the lead singer of Bush, a band we were all into when I was Scooby-aged, and yes, he was really hot. Also have to appreciate Willow's choice of John Cusack. Rather than just being a straight-up hunk, he's a good actor with some intriguing indefinable quality, very fitting for Willow's teenage nonconformity and perceptiveness. I don't know who Amy Yip is, and don't want to know.

The Buffy and Angel Show: I've always loved the way Angel says, "Everybody knows about this," because no, Angel, everybody does not. He's using the word to refer to a specific set of people, like we would with, "Come to my party, everyone's gonna be there." Context tells you who those people are, and in this case, it's vampires. Angel doesn't want to be associated with other vampires, but it doesn't even cross his mind that Buffy will forget he is one. It's no wonder she gets that iffy expression after asking him if he can take care of the blood bags.

I'd really like to hear more on how he felt about being the MacGuffin to kill Eyghon. It must have been painful, and dangerous, and it wasn't even to save Buffy, but we can see he doesn't hesitate. 

My Willow Tree: Does Willow hesitate, though? Or does she subconsciously see Angel as indestructible, or even dispensable? Fortunately, it worked, so all we have to find out about her in this adventure, once again, is that she's wicked resourceful.

It seems she drinks tea. And she's not even British.

Cordelia and Boyfriends: In the first 1.5 seasons, a lot of Cordelia's scenes feel like they're put there just so she can have an appearance, or for comic relief, rather than advancing the plot at all. I'm not complaining. Her dialogue when she crashes the police investigation in the library is hilarious. But when I gave it a closer look I realized that she was quite necessary in that scene, because the Scoobies needed to find out what was going on, and to get the timing right it had to be from someone who wouldn't volunteer the information up front. Every character really does have a function in this show. Go Cordy!
​
Xander and Bus Stations: Fandom tends to hate on Xander for his judgmental and petulant comments about women, but the times that he really bothers me don't have much to do with that -- check out the scene where Buffy tells the gang she's worried about Giles. Here's Xander undercutting practically every other line with some kind of joke, and this is so not the time. I honestly don't know how they all put up with him when he's in that kind of mood. 

By the way, Cordelia has seen him fight. When? Were we there?

We have a veritable wealth of Giles and Objects here today!:

And here's an enlightening conversation between post-Oxford Rupert and a much older Watcher, touching much the same emotional theme as the episode does:

          RIPPER
          Yes, yes. I know the story by heart. I am not you, Gran. Not nearly as strong or clever. People have died. Horribly.                  Because of me. Because I was stupid and selfish.

          GRAN
          You were a young fool who felt immortal, did remarkably ill-advised things, and it cost people their lives, eh?
          You bloody idiot.
          That doesn't disqualify you from being a Watcher. It makes you perfectly suited to mentor a Slayer.
          They're young girls granted tremendous power. Who can relate to them better? A man like your father, who's done                 the right and proper thing all his life? Or you?
           
          RIPPER
          What I've done goes well beyond a misspent youth.

          GRAN
          Oh, stop. I know all about Eyghon.
          Perhaps your soul is damned. Perhaps he'll claim it the moment you die and subject you to an eternity of torment. If            you want to be selfish about it, a lifetime of good works may be the one way to save yourself from that fate. The                   only path to redemption.
          And if you genuinely want to atone for what you've done, it's your duty. Much as you despise the word.
          You feel you've done wrong? Then stop crying about it...and start making amends.

​But here's a couple script quotes anyway:

        TILT BACK UP and REVEAL PHILIP, standing behind the attendant in a very un-dead way. Philip is shirtless and,                      presumably, corpse-naked. He looks like shit, being dead and all.

Willow and the "I thought teachers slept in coffins all summer" mentality:

          WILLOW
          You went by his place? He has a place?
          (off their looks)
          Of course he has a... I just never
          think of him living anywhere outside
          the library. So there was weirdness?

Notes:

• The custodian in the cold open has the same kind of blue collar accent as the guy who finds Bruce after he un-Hulks in the first Avengers movie. I don't know what it is but I love it.
• The title "The Dark Age" at first seems to imply only a bad time, long ago, but I wonder if we're also supposed to read "age" as a person's age, old or young. This could be either the darkness of youth, inexperience making one blind, or the darkness of age, steeped in regret.
• My biggest complaint about this episode is the line "Was it good for you too?" right after Jenny has become Eyghon. It sounds incredibly stupid in context, since all they did was kiss, and it diminishes some of the power of the same line used in "Innocence" (which was absolutely perfect). Makes me mad just thinking about it.
• No matter how many times the characters say it, I still pronounce Eyghon as "Ay-gon" in my head. Don't know why. Can't help it.

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• ​Drabble - Another Brick in the Wall

 The topic today is lying, and that's pretty heavy for a show which is usually only concerned with frivolous matters such as life and death. When you talk about lying, you're talking about honesty, which means you're talking about...truth. I was being flippant just now, but truth may be the only thing which really is heavier than life and death.

So, the context of a few young (or not so young) people lying to each other is actually a pretty good way to examine the importance of truth. I'm going to break it down a little further and keep a tally of every lie told in the episode. This won't tell us who's the most honest, or what the purest form of truth is, but it will give us a chance to think about all the different reasons people lie. 

Not going to include any lines that are just the person being wrong, or subjective, or flippant, but I'm up for challenges on my own interpretations.

Buffy Is the Title: Considering her part in the episode consists mostly of being lied to and reacting to it (gloriously!), she does get in rather a few of her own.
"Did a couple sweeps...Nothing vampiry." Angel isn't relevant and she didn't know Drusilla was a vampire, so this is a technicality, but it's worth the mention because the audience is immediately aware that there's something she's deliberately leaving out. Same with, "I'm fine," a moment later.
"Not thirsty." Not thirsty enough to stand in the same area Angel's standing for a few more minutes. There's a difference.
"It's getting crowded"/"I'm a little hot." Actually, strike those. She may well have been bothered by the crowd and the temperature, and she wasn't obligated to go into detail about why they were suddenly bothering her.
"My purse. I left my purse at the Bronze." and "There was a cat...and then they left." These are the lies of Buffy's everyday life.
​"I'm glad." The first time Buffy and Ford talks after she finds out she can't trust him, the entire conversation is full of lies of omission, but not many actual lies. Buffy says she likes surprises, for instance, but...she does like surprises.

The Buffy and Angel Show: The relationship status of Buffy and Angel is currently at "No. Yeah. Maybe. Could we lay off the tough questions for a while?" Sounds foreboding, but I'm for real when I say this is exactly what I love about B/A: even they don't know what to make of it. If you're in love with someone, and he's in love with you, does that automatically make him your boyfriend?
 
The complications don't end there. Buffy says she doesn't think the woman she saw with Angel was a vampire, because "they looked friendly." Logical -- Angel doesn't like vampires. But why does Willow even ask? Because Angel is a vampire. It's the central conflict of who Angel is: enemy of his own kind. Later we'll find out that Drusilla is indeed a vampire, but Angel's supposed friendliness toward her is a product of guilt, not affinity. Buffy's turmoil in the meantime is utterly understandable; what she thought was her man getting close with a strange lady may actually be her man drifting toward evil. Honesty between Buffy and Angel affects more than just their own relationship.
 
Lies are below, but here's one for my "brood" watch, too: this is the first time the word is used to describe Angel. Who uses it to describe Angel? Angel. It's a longtime peeve of mine that nobody seems to realize how self-aware he is.

"I stayed in and read." Angel's list isn't as long as the others, but this is a big one. Even if Buffy hadn't asked, he had no right to pretend it wasn't her business and go on without ever bringing it up.
"We're friends of Ford's." As far as getting into secret goth clubs...that was easy.

Willow and My Feelings: Here's a fun game you can play with your friends: where does this image come from? What does it mean?

​"Nothing...I cannot hang just now." I think I may have missed a couple innocuous ones aimed at protecting Buffy's identity, and even during her jumpy-coffee scene, she doesn't really say anything untrue. Makes her characterization very clear. We love her.

Xander and Bus Stations: I got nothin'. Dude is candid af.

Ford: If you read my fanfic series "Older," you'll notice I adopted Ford as my pet villain. I was just really impressed with the character: the concept, actor, dialogue, all of it. I think part of what made him work was his genuine fascination with old movies and horror tropes -- his clothing and awareness set him apart from the other True Believers, but he wasn't altogether above their delusions. He was in for (what he saw as) survival, but he liked the drama, and the fantasy of having some role to play in a story, be it victim or villain, kept him going.

Also, for a teenage human with cancer and no special abilities, he was a surprisingly competent bad guy. He manipulated a crowd of his peers, arranged an effective plan, and kept his cool around the vampires to the last. Like he said, it wasn't his fault that Buffy and the True Believers escaped, or that the vampires got locked in the basement. And what's even more intriguing is that as far as he was concerned, the plan worked perfectly: Spike and Dru held up their end of the bargain and sired him. If he had known more, he might have accounted for needing protection when he rose from his grave, but he did get the cure and the immortality he had wanted; it just didn't last very long.

"Matriculating. My dad got transferred."
"I didn't think you'd remember me."
"I've got to find the Admissions office, get my papers in order." Interesting thing about Ford is that we don't know how much of this is true. Did he run away from home, or did his father actually get transferred? When Buffy walked him to Admissions, did he wave goodbye and then pop in and make some excuse for being there?
"No, I'm actually here to stay."
"I killed her and she turned to dust."
"It's gonna be fun."  Same conversation as Buffy's lie of omission above, and again, not necessarily a lie; maybe he thinks it is gonna be fun. 

Giles and Objects: Yeah, pretty much the only object that Giles held throughout the entire episode was a note with Jenny's pager number.

His lies are all for the sake of courtesy, protecting Buffy's identity, or dishing out a monologue of sad yet comforting wisdom about growing up:
​"I've always been interested in monster trucks."
"She's given me her beeper number in case you need me for any…study help. Suddenly."
"Yes. It's terribly simple. The good-guys are stalwart and true. The bad-guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats and we always defeat them and save the day. Nobody ever dies…and everybody lives happily ever after."

Everybody Else: Spike and Dru, by the way, are not on the lie count. They had no reason to lie. They also had no reason to keep a promise, which is why I can't stop thinking about what happened after the final scene in the basement cut out, but their straightforward honesty throughout the episode provides a nice duality with the fibbing good guys.

Kairos's Official Lie Count: Results
Ford: 6
Buffy: 5
Giles: 3
Angel: 2
Willow: 1

Numerically, it's pretty meaningless. Ford being at the top is significant, but Angel's low score, rather than making me think he's particularly honest, makes me think he's just really good at keeping his secrets. When he doesn't want someone to know the truth, he just doesn't say anything. That's probably where Willow would be too, if not for Angel putting her into a situation where she couldn't not say anything.

Script quotes! There are a couple entire scenes which didn't make it to the final cut, but I've decided to start using those sparingly, as they're a pain to transcribe.

         We see a little merry-go-round turning absently in the (sorry, Gareth) foggy dark. A set of swings, also empty, also                pushed slightly by the night wind.

Haha, just gonna guess what Gareth's job was.

          BUFFY
          Do they know about "fun" in England?

          GILES
          Yes, but it's considered very poor taste 
          to have any. Very well. Do whatever 
          it is you like. You could spend some 
          time with Angel.

We missed out on a cultural divide joke.

         He's standing behind Buffy smiling. A charming and innocuous senior, Billy Fordham, known as FORD, waits for                   Buffy to turn. Which she does, wonder blossoming on her face.

Character introduction: Ford's charming.

          BUFFY 
          You drink? Drinks? I mean, non-blood things.

          ANGEL
          Yeah. I eat, too. Not for nutritional 
          value -- it just kind of passes the time.

          BUFFY
          Oh. Who knew?

          ANGEL
          There's a lot about me you don't know.

          BUFFY
          I believe that.

Including this for the little bit of lore it contains, although most of us would have either assumed it, or figured it out soon watching the habits of Buffyverse vampires.

          XANDER
          Well, Sunnydale is a fun town to live 
          in. If you're a small patch of moss.

I already lost track of where in the script this was taken from, but I thought it was cute.

         EXT. URBAN DISTRICT - NIGHT
         (Okay, it's our damn alley.) Ford walks cheerfully along.

More funny stage directions.

         A slinky goth girl, CHANTARELLE (formerly Joan), glides up to the boys with a couple of goblets.

Character introduction, with yet another name for Anne. 

         WILLOW
         Oh, no. we come here all the time.

         XANDER
         My corset's just at the cleaners.

That laugh would have been totally worth the airtime, come on.

Notes:

• There's nothing remarkable about Buffy's retort, "You ceased to exist?" when Angel says he didn't do anything last night, but for some reason, maybe because Angel's a supernatural creature and we don't yet know all the rules his species follows, I kept thinking about it literally until I made up a vampire-style supernatural creature which really does periodically cease to exist.
• When I first read Bram Stoker's Dracula a couple years ago, I found a familiar-sounding quote: "Whilst they played wits against me, against me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born, I was countermining them." It occurred to me at that point that I had never actually seen a screen adaptation of the original Dracula, because I recognized the line only from its bastardization in the movie that Ford lip-syncs to in the vampire club.
• "It took one of my books!" Funny how characters sometimes refer to a vampire as "it". Ford called this same one "her" earlier -- is this a difference between him and Giles, or is it more a matter of the context in which they encountered her?

​Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• Fic - False Witness

Even if this isn't an airtight theory, I have to go with it for one important reason: the simpering moron stereotype of past generations is vastly insulting to women. It seems to assume that being wealthy and protected makes us stupid, or that we won't want our rights if we're offered comfort instead. I can buy Buffy thinking like this when she's a modern middle-class teenager proud of her own courage, but I don't want it written into the story. We can't know much about the women of the ruling class two hundred years ago, but I believe there was a lot going on beneath the perfectly coiffed hair. Dismissing the victims of societal patriarchy as swooning bimbos is enormously unfair. 

That said, it throws me into some confusion to consider Cordelia in the same context. She's the modern swooning bimbo, spoiled and sexy, but in this episode she's written respectfully and actually handles her part in the crisis quite admirably. What do we take from this, aside from the too-vague-to-matter message of "be yourself"? Is Cordelia actually not accustomed to being protected? Is she not affected by the same weakness as Buffy because she's free? Or is the only comparison between Buffy and Cordelia their different methods of attracting men, so the only relevant message is that Buffy's works?

The Buffy and Angel Show: Then there's Angel, who actually coins the phrase "simpering morons." You know you're attached to a character when he says something completely objectionable and you just find it fascinating. It's not the first time, either - back in "Angel" he calls his poor Romani victim "dumb as a post" and never explains it. I've always wondered why he isn't called out more often for these moments, but I guess nobody puts much attention on his early days when there's so much that comes later. I'm sure his personality and history hadn't been fully worked out yet, so some of this could be random, or more likely, he's just saying exactly what Buffy's ideal boyfriend would say. She wants someone who loves her exactly as she is, so he derides everything she isn't. 

Later we'll find out that Angel was a womanizing drunk in his human days. It's uncomfortable to think that he hated the girls back then and slept with them all anyway, but there's also an insight somewhere in that. Maybe he just hated everyone. Maybe he deliberately went for the girls he couldn't respect, knowing he didn't deserve one he could. Were they really dull? I doubt it, but the interesting ones didn't give him a second glance. Until Darla, of course. A noblewoman. The kind he especially hated. Heck, she might have been the first one he ever met - he'd hate her automatically anyway, because you know how guys like him feel about women who are clearly out of their league. What to do with a beautiful stranger, all that rage, all that lust? Try to seduce her, of course. 

Well, that'll learn ya. But we don't know any of this during "Halloween" - he's just being a dick, and Buffy's loving it. Okay, her I can't blame too much; all she knows is that she just embarrassed herself with assumptions about what her boyfriend wanted, and now he's giving her the green light to relax and be confident in what they have. And I'm sure that's behind Angel's own motivations, too - he's trying to reassure her with the truth, but the nature of this truth means he has to stop before it goes into detail. Still, of all the accusations Angel gets for his moral choices, this is one that I think has been largely ignored: he doesn't always respect the memory of his victims.

That's one big reason that this isn't one of my favorite B/A shippy episodes. The other one is kind of contradictory: it doesn't have all that much to do with Angel. A good test of romantic scenes is to look at the dialogue without the character names. If it's a compelling romance, you'll still know it's these two people talking to each other about each other. "Halloween" is big on Buffy and her feelings, but they're fairly generic feelings and it's a fairly generic story, and Angel could be anyone at all. His only identifying factor is that he comes from the past and likes Buffy better when she's being herself (and to that, duh). So this time we really need to zero in on his insensitivity just to make him interesting.

Cordelia and Boyfriends: Does she break up with Devon by the next episode? We'll check on that. I kind of wanted them to date longer, though. See, they're a great couple, because he doesn't die or try to kill her.

I think I could go on for a while about the extension of the Cordelia vs. Willow theme from "Inca Mummy Girl", but I'm not sure what's been added to it this time, except for what I already said about Cordelia vs. Buffy. It's funny to see Cordy and Buffy competing over Angel at this stage, not only because fandom turns them into a love triangle in a few years, but because Cordy is so hopelessly outmatched. She finds a guy who really is worth fighting for and doesn't know what to do with him, because her usual strategy only works on rich losers. 

Xander and Bus Stations: I really like how subtly Cordy and Xander's relationship progresses here. She appreciates him in soldier mode, and I think he must find some relief after the fact that she was there as herself to go through it with him. Plus, that cute conversation about how hard it is to get between Buffy and Angel. Season 2 love square for the win!

My Willow Tree: Willow rocks in this episode, but I don't really have much else to say about her except that her costume was my favorite. It was just such a clever way to have her in both the ghost costume and the sexy one - the ghost is the one that takes effect, but the sheet itself just stays with the body, so she's a ghost of what exactly. And she knows how well she did throughout the night, so she feels fine about catching eyes in public. 

I'd wag a finger at Oz if that outfit was the only reason he noticed her, but since it comes after the Eskimo and the ghost, I just love him more. "Who is that girl?" is really the only sensible thing he can say at this point. Don't just decide what you think about the woman - inquire. Find out. Who is she?

Giles and Objects: Considering that this is a huge turning point for his character and I love it and I love him, I'm not really sure what there is to talk about. He's got mysteries. We'll hear more about most of them. ​

Now for some shooting script quotes... 

          Buffy is about to touch it when ETHAN RAYNE, the shop owner, approaches. He has a devilish glint in his eye and                 speaks with just a hint of a British accent.

Character introduction! I have no particular feelings about Ethan Rayne, except insofar as he affects Giles. Question, though. Just a hint? I don't know if that's what he was going for, but not a lot of people can pull off a slight accent of any kind - it's either there or it isn't. 

          Willow arrives at a dead (I'm so funny) run.

Yes, you are. 
​
           They BOLT, but Buffy is having trouble keeping up. Angel SWEEPS her into his arms, carries her. 

           ON BUFFY 

           Afraid - but giving into his protection.

Whatever else I've said about Buffy and Angel and simpering women in this episode...yeah. Achilles' heel. Right there. 

          We move through the crowd until we land on ANGEL, sitting at a table alone. Looking a little bored, impatient. A                  voice snaps him out of his brooding.

Missed this one on my first look - I only mention it because I'm doing a casual brood-count. So far, the word has only been applied to other characters; now we see it describing Angel, but only in the shooting script. Stay tuned! 

          There is a detailed DRAWING of a beautiful woman with long, dark hair. She wears a flowing 18th century gown.

I want to laugh about how Buffy says the illustration doesn't say what the woman's name is, and it totally does, but I lost my screencap. We can still laugh, though. Seriously, I can't even begin to fanwank this one. Buffy and Willow became temporarily illiterate? 

Notes:

• Oh, the other thing that sparked my interest in the shooting script was that it was specified that the woman has long dark hair. Anything to do with Drusilla, you think? 
• Willow and Buffy conning Giles to sneak into his office are just about the cutest thing.
• "Hello, Ripper."
• We never hear why vampires eschew Halloween. Theories?
• Buffy has this one fantastically sweet and adorable mannerism wherein she puts her face against her male friend's shoulder and gazes up at him with an innocent smile. I don't know if this was a directing choice or something SMG made up herself, but it's a fairly bold thing to do with a character whose whole purpose is to defeat the flirty female archetype, and I love it. 

          INT. LIBRARY - DAY - GILES IS UPSET

That was cute. 

          BUFFY 
          Or what it's like to exterminate vampires 
          while you're having fuzzy feelings 
          towards one. 

          GILES 
          You're still-? That is dicey.

Wish they had kept this; I'm always interested in what Giles thinks about B/A, pre-Surprise. I like it that Buffy so openly admits it to him, even though she must know he'll think it's dicey, and I like it that he's honest about his reaction but doesn't scold her, even though he's in the middle of a more general scolding. 

           She moves to the car. The dark window rolls down revealing RICHARD (the twenty year old sadist from the teaser)                in expensive slacks and sport coat. As are the other two DELTA ZETAS in back. 

          In the passenger seat is TOM, also 20, but dressed casually. Tom is rich, too, but he's not a prick, he's a low key,                    decent guy.

Because I always bring you the character introductions. 

          BUFFY 
          I don't really want to meet any fraternity- 

          CORDELIA 
          And if there was a God, don'tcha 
          think He'd keep it that way?

I'm really conflicted about this line because it's kind of funny and so Cordelia, but her grammar fail makes it not work. Keep it what way? Buffy not wanting to meet any fraternity guys? 

          BUFFY 
          Then- whatever, I don't know, might be 
          nice to find out. But you want to end it 
          before it's begun. Fine.

Alternate to the "isn't it supposed to be?" exchange. I think I prefer the aired version. 

          The others murmur "Machida" (pronounced Ma-Kee-Da).

That got me curious so I looked up Machida. Got this: "Lyoto Carvalho Machida is a Brazilian mixed martial artist from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil who fights as a light heavyweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship." Well then.

And here's another little bit of alternate: 

          Tom comes to near the alter. And, unbeknownst to any of our heroes, the snake body begins slowly moving. Until it            joins up with the torso. A squooshy sound of flesh and protoplasm meeting and the two halves re-join! 

          CORDELIA (cont'd) 
          (to Tom) 
          You're going to jail for about fifteen 
          thousand years. Oh god, it's over, 
          it's really- 

          That's when Machida, re-joined, suddenly pops up again. 

          Angel takes a threatening step forward next to Buffy and growls. 

          Machida towers over Tom: 

          MACHIDA 
          For a hundred years I have given your forebearers 
          wealth and power. And this is how you repay me. 
          From this day forth you are alone in the world. 

          Machida slides back down. Cordelia is afraid to breathe. With good reason. Machida pops back up, grabs Tom. 

          MACHIDA (cont'd) 
          Lil' somethin' for the road. 

          Machida disappears into the pit with Tom. We hear Tom's screams, a quick couple of chomps and then silence.

Anyone's guess whether this was cut for length, or because they decided jail was better than death for the evil human, or because it turned out to be too difficult for the actor to speak in the snake costume, but I do regret missing out on Angel's threatening growl. 

          A high school freshman, a real young looking one, moves up to Cordelia, hands her a coffee and a muffin. He looks            up at her (being so much shorter and all) adoringly. 

          CORDELIA 
          Thank you, Leslie. Did we forget the 
          extra foam?

I think this is the second time that Jonathan's played a role that was some random kid in the script - how long did it take for them to figure out that he should be a regular guest star? 

          WILLOW 
          They didn't find the snake? (Xander shakes his head) 
          Which means we probably will some 
          day. Oh goody.

Or maybe this is why they changed it - they knew they'd never bring the snake back.

Notes:

• There was also a whole unaired bit at the party about Xander sneaking in under a name from the guest list. The window thing was better. ​
• I get a sincere cringe from the 'New Pledge' ritual. Hazing's bad enough as it is; I can't imagine doing it to someone you never expect to see again.

​
Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
  
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• ​Fic - Wake Up (From a Deep Sleep) and Live (Happily Ever After)

It's harder to get a review of the next episode up when the next episode isn't very good, and I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who ranks "Inca Mummy Girl" among their favorites. In addition to its sub-par plot and writing, it's rather a downer just because it comes right after "School Hard", when all of these elements promising us a great season are introduced. Then we get nothing - no Spike and Dru, no advancement of the season's plot. It's the first (and only) episode of Season 2 without Angel. What were they thinking?

One quick specific gripe I have to make is about the cultural portrayals, and this is actually one thing where I agree with Mark (of Mark Watches), possibly the first and last time since I started reading his reviews. The whole treatment of South America (you know, the country of South America, where they speak South American) was embarrassing. The International Dance or whatever was cringe-worthy. Sven dressed up as a viking. Vikings didn't even wear helmets with horns, did you know that? DID YOU? To be fair, this kind of event probably did happen at high schools in the 90's, so maybe we can just look at this as realism, but ugh. Someday I want to go to an event in a foreign land where they make me dress up in a historical American costume. Maybe I could be a Puritan! 

The episode does have one redeeming feature, though (aside from the usual collection of scattered funny lines and the fact that Giles exists): the introduction of Oz. I think it makes perfect sense to concentrate on that factor, no?

But first, Willow. I might have thought a little too hard about the scene with Rodney, but a couple things surprised me: first, that Willow didn't hold it against him that he used to beat up Xander, and second, that Rodney was actually really nice to her. I got the impression that there was something of a friendship between them. Not enough of one for her to spend a second mourning him, of course, but an appreciation of each other. Which is weird, right? What does a smart shy kid see in a bully? What does a troublemaker see in a genius?

On Rodney's side it's kind of sweet. On Willow's side it's a bit ominous - apparently, she cares more about a person's behavior toward herself than she does about his behavior in general, or even toward her own best friend. I could even believe that her years of frustration with Xander led her to take some conflicted pleasure at his abuse. On the other hand, ouch. That's pretty bad. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she only started liking Rodney after he reined in his bullyish tendencies.

Clearly what I'm doing here is trying to justify the drabble at the end of this post, because nobody ever commented on it and my heart is empty. Okay, no seriously though, I accept and embrace the drabble being ignored, it wasn't that interesting, but here's my thoughts in a different form: Willow and Oz have something unexpected and awesome in common, shown to us before they meet. Rodney and Devon have practically nothing going for them except a vague social coolness which manifests in Rodney as rebellion, and in Devon as shallow charm. Willow and Oz, on the other hand, are incredibly smart people with talent, courage, and individuality. Yet they don't look down on anyone. They're not too good to hang out with the morons, even when they have nothing to gain from it. 

I especially like seeing Oz and Devon interact - rather extensively, considering that they're both brand-new characters and not talking about anything related to the episode's plot - because their friendship continues for as long as Oz is in the series, though I'm pretty sure that Devon stops appearing in person. Part of it, obviously, is that they're in a band together. Part of it is that Oz himself is terminally apathetic (I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about that later, but for now, let's just acknowledge it - he's not perfect, though he comes close). But the main thing is that they're just buddies. Oz is okay with Devon being his shallow self because he doesn't need anything more than him, and he's okay being up front with his criticisms because he knows Devon respects him and deserves honesty. 

Cordelia and Boyfriends: And here's another interesting relationship square: Willow/Oz, Cordelia/Devon. We'll have to keep an eye on the latter; I don't remember how long they last, but I want to see what it is that breaks them up, since right now they're essentially perfect for each other. Oz's friend and Willow's enemy - are they too alike to make it work?

Oh shoot, I think I have more to say about Willow. Isn't this supposed to be a Xander episode? Well, that's fairly pat. He falls in love with a dead girl, it ends badly. Although, if it were happening in real life, I think I'd feel pretty bad for him - he and Ampata make a great match, even if there isn't a whole lot of reason that their feelings for each other should develop so swiftly. Aside from his insensitivity to Willow, he really wasn't even a jerk about it. 

But forget him, for the moment. Think instead of Willow in the Eskimo suit. Remove the weird high school cultural festival context. It's a great costume, and she's excited about it. Until she gets to the event, and Buffy isn't there, and Xander's only about Ampata. All alone in a parka, poor Willow.

Enter Cordelia, looking gorgeous and baring skin, and all too ready to make fun of the nerd girl who doesn't have the sense to do the same. The message is pretty damn clear: if you don't want to be alone, better learn how to attract the boys. Willow herself states it explicitly: "Maybe I should have worn something sexy."

Now, I'm divided on how this was resolved. On one hand, NO. WILLOW, NO. Be your fun, creative, parka'd self. Thank the heavens that Oz was there to back me up, stating just as explicitly that he's interested in the fun girl over the sexy girl. On the other hand, Cordy's path was ultimately the one that Willow chose. Not entirely; she never adopted the Cordette styles and obviously she wasn't seeking the attention of boys at the end. But she did learn about being cool. Her growth in confidence, I think, had less to do with finding people like Oz who appreciated her for who she was, and more to do with simply avoiding any possibility of again getting caught in an unsexy outfit at a dance. 

I think I actually had a better point to make before I wrote that down. Oh, well.

All in all, I think if you're an Inca princess who was unfairly sacrificed a thousand years ago in the prime of your youth, you still shouldn't kill people just to stay alive. Although there are a lot of other considerations to this that weren't even brought up - has she really been conscious the whole time she's been a mummy? That's horrible and someone should do something about it. Also, did she save her people by being sacrificed, or was it just one of those meaningless heathen rituals? Big difference!

The Girl Herself: Not much to say about Buffy, but I did pause for a while on the final lines, when Xander points out that she chose to give up her life when it was needed, and Buffy says "I had you to bring me back." Of course she's looking first and foremost for something to say to make her friend feel better, and this definitely fits the bill. But how does it fit into the context? Buffy and Ampata both had to make the ultimate sacrifice; Buffy was the only one who actually did it, even though she didn't want to. It's basically luck that she's alive now, but it's luck in the form of Xander. 

So, is this just an expression of gratitude to give him in exchange for his acknowledgement of her own strength? Or is it more to say that she had friends, where Ampata didn't? That actually might heighten my sympathy for the mummy. Maybe there is some truth behind it - it was easier for Buffy to give of herself, because she knew that there were others who would do the same for her, even if she didn't know that one of them would in fact nullify her own death. Ampata had no basis for learning how to be selfless.

I still don't like her though. Stay in your box, damned dead girl!

Giles and Objects: Got some for you! Now we'll have some fun!​

Okay, this episode feels sufficiently squeezed out. Here's some quotes. 

          BUFFY 
          I wasn't gonna use violence. I 
          don't always use violence. Do I? 

          XANDER 
          The important thing is, you believe 
          that. 

          BUFFY 
          I might have used reason. Or my 
          feminine wiles.

Hmm. Which one did Willow use? 

          XANDER 
          Ooh, Sunnydale bus depot. Classy. 
          What better way to say "Welcome 
          to Our Country" than with the 
          stench of urine.

Xander vs. Bus Stations - it's a thing. We'll keep track. 

           ANGLE: A MAN (PERU MAN) 

           murder in his eyes, rushes from the shadows, shrieking. Long, curved KNIFE raised. (Some people call it a huge,                   machete-like carving blade. We call it a long, curved knife.)

The first time I copied these quotes in, my post got eaten, so I'm going the half-assed route for the second time. But I thought you should have these stage directions. 

           INT. BUFFY'S ROOM - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHT 

           Buffy and Joyce make up an extra bed. 

           BUFFY 
           You said she was staying in the study. 

           JOYCE 
           That was when we thought Ampata 
           was a boy. But since he's a girl, I 
           thought you could double up. 

            BUFFY 
            Mom, you think too much. 

            JOYCE 
            You two in a room together? Give 
            you both a chance to share secrets. 

            BUFFY 
            I'm not a big secret sharer. I like 
            my secrets. They're secret. 

            JOYCE 
           Oh, it'll be fun. 

           BUFFY 
           Fun. Yeah. 
           (smiling) 
           You know, next year I ought to sign 
           up for one of those 'exchange mom' 
           programs. 

           Joyce smiles as they finish making the bed.

Nice little Buffy and Joyce moment that we missed out on. Plus, I like the way Buffy is kind of resentful of Ampata out of her hearing, but takes care to not show it in any way that could hurt her feelings. 

            Two students, SAM and OZ - by their looks, obviously members of the band - load music and sound equipment                    into a van, which has their logo emblazoned on the side. Cordelia talks with DEVON, the band's good-looking lead                singer.

Character introductions! Hold on, there's a better one for Oz coming up. 

           There's a quiet restraint and total lack of bitterness to his sarcasm; where Devon is your typical excitable rock                       and roller,  Oz is completely unflappable. His is the kind of cool that is completely unaware of itself.

Love this guy. 

          ANGLE: XANDER AND AMPATA 

          as they enter. They're gorgeous together.

I wouldn't go that far, but Xander does look pretty spiffy in his costume.

Notes:

• The real reason Angel wasn't in this episode was that Dru had him tied up. You know how she is.
• Xander will help bring Buffy back to life the second time too, but in a bad way.
  
• I was kidding about heathen rituals being meaningless! Put down the long, curved knife!

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
  
• Read this post on LiveJournal
  
• Drabble - The Other Kind of Friendship

Shooting script quotes:

           SHEILA MARTINI (17, sexy, slovenly and somewhat dangerous)

If Spike and Dru are the good of this episode, Sheila is definitely the bad. Her lines were okay (I'll quote you a couple), but obviously she wasn't going to be developed much beyond the above description, and several of her scenes were just a train wreck of bad acting. To make matters worse, she survived. Somewhere in the Buffyverse, a slovenly teenage vampire is running around hitting on punkish guys. 

             We see his foot first, stepping out in a shitkicker steel-toed boot. As he walks in front of the car the camera ARMS                UP, revealing his punkish outfit, his long coat. As he puts a cigarette to his lips we reach his face. He looks young,                 his eyes sparkling with anarchy. He smiles as he lights the cigarette. And, oh yeah. He's a vampire. 

             This is SPIKE.

Much better! This is Spike, indeed. I wonder if this was written before he was cast - certainly it was written before his future as a long-term character was decided, which stirs up all kinds of curiosity about what was going on behind the scenes here. Anyway, I love how the description here makes me picture the moment so easily. They completely nailed it. 

             SPIKE 
             Would it kill ya', little mouthwash 
             every couple hundred years?

So glad they removed this. I have to check TVtropes to see if they have one for complaining about the bad guy's breath. It was funny the first time, like, fifty years ago. 

             DRUSILLA wanders in as he speaks, looking at everything with the quiet wonder of a child.

This is all we get for her introduction, sadly. I know she was cast before Spike, so maybe they'd already discussed her character to death and didn't need it in the script. 

           BUFFY 
           But I didn't feel good about it or 
           anything. I mean, I don't condone...
           So. We're gonna Bronze it tonight, 
           if you wanted to come. 

           SHEILA 
           I can't go there. You threaten one 
           bartender with a broken bottle and 
           they like ban you for life. 
           (snorts)

As promised, cute Sheila quotes to salvage her cruddy character. Here's another:

           SHEILA 
           Hey, illustrated man, over here.

And here's a whole scene that got cut:

           INT. THE FACTORY - NIGHT 

           Spooky. Lit by torches. Spike and Drusilla are noticeably absent. 

           Vampires are chanting, whipping themselves and each other. The Anointed One sits in the shadows. Standing near             him and speaking for him is: 

           LEAN BOY 
           Saint Vigeous, you who murdered so 
           many, we beseech you, cleans us of our 
           weaknesses: mercy, compassion and pity. 

            OTHERS 
            We will bathe in their blood. 

            The Anointed One, like a little Godfather, motions to Lean Boy who leans down close to him. 

            ANOINTED ONE 
            Where is he? 

            LEAN BOY 
            Spike? He, uh, said he doesn't go 
            for religion. 

            ANOINTED ONE 
            He should be here. 

            LEAN BOY 
            He's with the woman. He's always 
            with the woman. 

            The Anointed One looks displeased. CAMERA TRACKS PAST the ceremony, into the darker recesses of the factory. 

            LEAN BOY (cont'd) 
            (to vamps) 
            Lambs to the slaughter! 

            OTHERS 
            Bathe in their blood! 

            We discover a narrow passageway, stairs leading down.

I guess this scene was unnecessary because it's more or less repeated from Spike and Dru's POV, but for some reason reading it made the whole vampire succession dilemma clearer for me. The traditionalists aren't happy about Spike's way of doing things. Spike doesn't go for religion. Spike is "always with the woman". This is an upheaval in progress, not just of the vampires' lifestyle, but of the entire show. 

          WILLOW 
          Do you think Sheila will show? 

          BUFFY 
          I doubt it. She doesn't seem to care 
          about getting kicked out - about 
          anything. I sort of envy that. 

          WILLOW 
          I don't think she's very happy.

Nothing too deep but I was kind of interested in the way Willow's view of Sheila just kind of hangs there. Like she wants Buffy to know that caring about stuff will help her in the long run, but doesn't want to mention it directly.

           XANDER 
           The important thing in punch is the 
           ratio of Vodka to Schnapps. 
           (off looks) 
           That was obviously far too 
           sophisticated a joke for this crowd.

Or this one, apparently, since the line was cut out... 

           Willow grabs the heavy bust of Flutie, clocks him with it, they cut left, down the SOUTH HALL.

There was a bust of FLUTIE? Did anyone know that? I did not know that. 

           DRUSILLA 
           Did she hurt you? 

           Is that just a little pleasure at that question?

Ooh, intriguing. If it's mentioned at all, the answer is yes. So right from the beginning, Dru likes seeing Spike in pain. Is this typical vampire S&M stuff, or is it a hint about their relationship crumbling in the future? 

Notes:

• I've always thought that Spike's speech in this episode (and possibly the next few) had a musical quality to it that he lost later on. In a recent interview with Marsters I learned that this was just the result of him not quite having his English accent down yet. I was crushed.
• Regarding the Anne Rice routine: Angel's said to be a ripoff of Louis, but as far as I know, Louis never returned to humanity. It would have been hard to pity him, even as a reader.
• The first we hear about Dru's visions is that it's dark where the Slayer is - an uncertain future, apparently, which I like. It would have been easy enough to give her some vague proclamation which didn't give away plot points but still came true, but it's better this way. Nobody has a clue what's coming.
• The dialogue between Giles and Jenny is beautiful. She comes across as exactly as intelligent as he is, though in a different way, like Willow. She doesn't usually get listed as one of the big brains, but I think there's evidence that she is one.
• Looked up the lyrics to "Stupid Thing". No hidden secrets. Tolerable song but rather boring.
• Willow, your job here is not to conceal the lemonade error! What if someone important had tasted it and expelled Buffy?!

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• Fic - The Third Defenestration of Prague

In which I talk about love stories a lot. If that sounds too much like it's going to just be a wall of text (83% probability, tbh), here's a handy-dandy visual guide to who loves who in Sunnydale at this point in S2. ​

I have this weird thing for the way Giles puts down American culture whenever he has an opening. As an American myself, I secretly believe that all citizens of other countries secretly believe that the US is the best one, with the only exceptions being those who openly admit it.* The friendly banter that ensues when someone tries to deny our inherent superiority always tickles me, because it highlights all the little idiosyncrasies that give everyone a cultural identity. I think that, on the whole, Giles does appreciate a lot about America, but he'll never feel like it's home, and he knows he doesn't have to, and he knows he can get away with saying so.

Cordelia and Boyfriends: One of them died before the show even began. 

Willow and Connections: Does it seem like there are a lot of math/science genius boys at Sunnydale High? And Willow has an acquaintance with all of them? And then they die or turn out to be evil? Actually, what happened to Chris after this? And Eric, didn't he survive too? Why couldn't one of them be used to round out the Trio in S6, instead of introducing Andrew?

This was never one of my favorite episodes in spite of its very special B/A moments - there's too much football and cheerleading, and dead people. Undead I love, walking dead takes a certain kind of format to work, but reanimated dead? Gross without any real fear factor to justify it. 

Of course we're asked to look past the embarrassing Frankenstein stage makeup and embarrassing repetitions of "Go team go!" and find the metaphor to ponder, so let's see if I can talk about that at all before my mind wanders. (I was just thinking about giraffes.) Dealing with the literal level first, the lessons are as follows: don't bring the dead back to life, and you can't make a girl. And for me the most remarkable thing is that those exact lessons are repeated in later episodes, though I don't think it's ever both at the same time again.

Why not bring the dead back to life? Well, they come back wrong. Daryl came back wrong. It's not just that he's gross, it's that he doesn't understand what others know inherently, i.e., you can't make a girl. Maybe it's sloppy acting or maybe he really was just a douche before he died, but I don't think we're supposed to believe this Daryl resembles the old Daryl much. It's not about magic having consequences this time because the deed was done with science (hahaha, an electric surge + an adrenaline boost, that's right Willow, you big brain you), but the issue is essentially the same. Granting life is overstepping your bounds just as much as taking it is.

Why not make a girl? Actually, what got me wondering about the scheme was why they had to assemble a girl out of pieces, when Daryl was apparently just Daryl. The bodies were all damaged in the car accident, right? I wish someone had brought up the possibility of ditching the stitched-together body when they got Cordelia, and just using her own body as well as her head. Doesn't it seem like it would be easiest to kill her and them immediately revive her? What I guess I'm getting at here is - did they need to wipe away some integral part of Cordelia to make her a suitable match for Daryl? One can only assume that the map of her memories and personality would be stored in her brain, so she'd still be herself-ish without her own body. Would she be moreherself if her head was never severed from her nervous system? Would that make her too likely to freak out and reject Daryl as her mate? Is it harder to control a girl's body than her mind, and is that why you can't make your own?

No quotes from the shooting script this time. There were very few differences from the aired versions, and no particularly interesting stage directions. One thing I noticed, though, was the line in which Buffy tells Chris that she knows what it's like to lose someone - she said just the opposite in the shooting script: 

          BUFFY (cont'd) 
          Listen, I don't know what it's like 
          to lose someone close to you like 
          your brother, but I know what you're 
          trying to do is wrong.

I wonder if this was setting the stage for "Killed by Death"? I can't think of anyone but her cousin that Buffy has already lost at this point. 

Notes:

• I was kidding about America being superior! Put down the cricket bat!

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• Fic - Fox Hunt

Giles is wise and good and perfect and I love him and his bi-color eyes and his books. He does not like his soda. Everyone goes to him for help and advice. He is like totally into Miss Calendar and she's into him.

I have a hard time appreciating the drama of the scene where Buffy smashes the Master's skeletons, because I'm too busy waiting to see how much of it rebuilds between shots.

Also, betcha anything that Giles is watching this spectacle thinking, "Why didn't we just do this in the first place?"

Shooting script quotes! 

          JENNY 
         (flirtatiously) 
         Depends on the book.

She is really good at saying completely innocuous things flirtatiously. 

          HANK 
          I may have been overcompensating a little. 
          It was strange. At least when she was burning 
          stuff down I knew what to say. As for 
          example, 'don't burn stuff down'. But now...

Okay, that last part actually clarifies a lot, and should have been left in. 

          BUFFY 
          Local talent. Fresh. He was still wearing his 
          funeral ensemble. 

          GILES 
          Which means there are other vampires 
          about, and they're already killing. I 
          should have been on top of that. 
          I wonder if they're here for some 
          particular purpose...

See these are good lines. It didn't occur to me to think like that - if a vamp is newly risen, there's an older one around. That's why Giles is the Watcher and we just work here! 

          GILES (cont'd) 
          She may simply have what you Americans 
          refer to as 'issues'.

Maybe, but we refer to them as "ishoos". Try to temper your funky UK phonetic pronunciation thing, Giles. 

          A group of vampires, including TARA (girl vampire) stands on the balconies and rafters, listening to someone on the            floor below.

Ha! Did anyone know that? Sort of like Jenny's name was Nikki. 

           ABSALOM 
           For the Old Ones, for his pain. For 
           the Dark.

Old Ones! 

           GILES 
           Buffy, you acted wrongly, I admit, but 
           believe me, that was hardly the worst 
           mistake you'll ever make. 
           (a beat) 
           That wasn't nearly as comforting as it 
           was meant to be.

But it was truuuue. 

          ANGLE: XANDER 

          Watches Angel hold her, silently. PAN OVER to find Willow watching Xander with much the same emotion. 

I missed this until I knew to look for it, but, wow. Way to put the triangle in a nutshell. (It's not really a triangle, but I don't know what else to call it.) 
​
Notes:

• Buffy's still sleeping on a crocheted pillow. WHY.
• I kinda like the Cibo Matto song! And it works really well in the scene.
• The vamp extras are named Vampire Bob, Vampire Jane, Vampire Walt, and Vampire Ned.
• I read Absalom, Absalom! in college. Even did a presentation on it. Don't remember a word of the book or what I said about it. Screw you, Faulkner.
• I've never been to Burning Man, but I've heard about it from those who have, and if I felt confident in my ability to survive it, it would probably be a dream of mine to go. Giles maybe not so much, but I love it that Jenny loved it.

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• Fic - Victor's Burden

And here's some quotes from the shooting script. 

          Which is when the hail of pebbles starts. 

         The first few get Buffy's attention, tiny hard pellets hitting the ground around her. She stands as more start coming             down. 

        People -- including Buffy -- all run for cover as the real shower starts. Buffy stands under the archway, watching the             hail come down. 

         ANGLE: XANDER 

         Walking away, not near Buffy. He hears: 

         STUDENT (O.S.) 
         Check it out! It's raining 
         stones! 

         Xander looks back over his shoulder. 

         XANDER 
         Figures. 

         And turns and goes.

Not a terribly pointy scene, but Xander's reaction actually did make me kinda grin. 

There's nothing here that we don't get somewhere else, sooner or later, but I would have liked to see it, especially Angel's trace of fear regarding the Master. And "He doesn't like you anymore" provides such a tantalizing hint about their history. Also, just the idea of a scene which doesn't consist of anything beyond "the Anointed One stops by to threaten Angel" makes me wonder. Is Angel enough of a danger to Team Master that they want to get him out of the way before the big event? 

          WILLOW 
          Well, how can we help her? 

          MS. CALENDAR 
          I'm sorry to bring this up but 
          we've also got an apocalypse to 
          worry about. 

          XANDER 
          Do you mind? 

          WILLOW 
          (re: Calendar) 
          How come she's in the club? 

          MS. CALENDAR 
          Hey, once the Master gets free, the 
          Hellmouth opens. The demons come 
          to party and everybody dies. We 
          have to prepare. Rupert, you know 
          I'm right. 

This kind of thing happens in the series a few times, doesn't it? That is, the conflict between "save the world" and "save our friend". Makes me think of Buffy's prioritization of Dawn in "The Gift", but in mini. 

          MS. CALENDAR 
          How big is a Hellmouth, anyway? 

          GILES 
          I don't know. Hellmouth-sized. 

Aww, you guys. 

          Xander pulls out a stake and his cross. He tosses the cross to Angel -- 

          ANGEL 
         Ooh! Ow! Hot! 

         -- who baubles it and tosses it back. Xander tosses him the stake instead. 

         XANDER 
         Sorry. 

Doofy but cute. 

         GILES 
         I don't know about the rest of you, 
         but I'd really like to get out of 
         this library. I hate it here.

Changed in the aired version to "I don't like libraries much anymore" (or something like that? it was really hard to hear), but either way, kind of a funny sentiment. That didn't last long. 
​
Notes:

• Holy crap, the country music Xander chooses is "I Fall to Pieces". Gross!
• Angel's "I like your dress" isn't in the shooting script. Good addition! 
• Why did the vampires want to be at the library for the opening of the Hellmouth? Do they derive some kind of energy from their proximity to it? Is it a Hellmouth shower? Are all the best sales on opening day?

Links:

• The Watcher's Diary
• Read this post on LiveJournal
• Drabble - Serpent Fantastico
• Fan art - Scoobies Victorious

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