Blog Posts

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S2E06: "Halloween"

2/18/2018

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
2.06: Simpering Morons

There's one thing that really bothers me about this episode. No, there are probably several and I'll notice them as I continue to write. Anyway, let's just start with the first one: Sarah Michelle Gellar forgot how to act the moment Ethan Rayne's spell kicked in, and didn't remember again until it was broken. If there's one Whedonverse actor who should never be cast in a historical setting, I found her. (That's not fair, since this particular example was filmed so long ago, but it's a rant, just go with it.) Was her accent worse than Boreanaz's? Probably not, but here's a question: what kind of accent was it? If she transformed into a woman from Angel's past, why didn't she think she was Irish? Or if she did, well, that settles it. Definitely a worse accent than ol' Liam.

I can't imagine there's much else in the way of historical accuracy, either. The entirety of costume-bespelled-Buffy's personality seemed to be weakness, fear, and haughty concern for her appearance. That dress would not have fooled anyone. Her lines were just lame.

So my first reaction to this is to put my fanwanking muscles in gear. Why was Buffy such a lousy facsimile of an English(/Irish??) noblewoman? Well, maybe because she didn't know anything about the character she was playing. Her conversation with Willow gave us a rundown of her impressions of the type of woman she would try to emulate later: she's spoiled, it's her job to look pretty, and she can't vote. That's what we saw from her, because the spell isn't shaped by what the costume represents, but by what the wearer thinks it represents. Xander wouldn't believe he was just any soldier; he'd want to be the hardcore action hero type. Willow was a pretty basic ghost: dead and insubstantial.

Speaking of costumes, what do you suppose this kid turned into?

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.

Here's Giles with some index cards. Not exactly the easiest scene to screencap.

Here's Giles with a handkerchief. Hey beautiful man, how ya doin'?

Here's Giles with a bust of Janus. Seriously, Giles is not making it easy for me to capture his moments of holding things.

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.

Awwwww.

Links:

1 Comment

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S2E05: "Reptile Boy"

2/17/2018

0 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
2.05: Whoooooa, It's a Snake

WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THESE PANTS? I think it's the only article of clothing she wears more than once. It's not that I don't like giraffes, just...she wore so many cute things, why THESE?

One of my biggest beefs about this episode is something that should be fairly minor, but for some reason, isn't. Buffy's "nice guy", Tom, is a fail. His appearance is bland and artificial, the actor is wooden, and he doesn't say anything that would explain why Buffy initially likes him enough to accompany him to his party. The friendly college student ruse is effective enough, but it doesn't matter - when he turns out to be evil, sure, that could explain why he cast such a one-dimensional blemish-free image, but the lingering and still more likely explanation is that he's just a poorly conceived character. The one-dimensional thing, it's fact.

And he had some good lines, too! The whole "nothing happened last week, I was there" exchange was charming and almost clever; seems like only the delivery was off, for that and a few others. I just really wanted him to fool me, even in a rewatch. I wanted to rail at my screen, "Why do all the cute funny guys turn out to be demon-worshipers?!" But instead all I can think about is his stupid sweater and hair. Dolt.

Other gripes: why the bejeezus would anyone need a computer to think of words that end in 'ENT'? Xander got that bra off way too easily; either he has practice or it was velcro. The snake looks like a hand puppet. Angel's lipstick looks like lipstick. Why did they call it "Reptile Boy" instead of coming up with some clever pun about the frat? And let's not forget the pants (no matter how hard we try).

On the whole, though, I like this episode. The setting is kind of cool; I have no experience with frats but I kind of buy the way this one was portrayed. There are a lot of good character moments between the clumsier bits of dialogue. Buffy and Giles' relationship was a highlight, as was the demonstration that Buffy can be taken out with one roofied drink passed to her by a powerless human - chilling, but useful information.

And, of course, there's the B/A factor.

The Buffy and Angel Show: Okay, forget the whole frat boy thing, because this is really what the episode is about. And I love it. I love Angel's first appearance coming with an undeniable reminder that he's a vampire. I love Buffy's nervous dance as she tries to figure out how to phrase her request for a date. I love Angel seeing through her, and I love how he's an asshole about it. Sure, I also love how they eventually resolve the argument and get couply at the end, but most of all, I love how the conflict has finally come to the surface for them, and that they have to talk about it directly. Uh, almost directly.

The most controversial line in the episode is "When you kiss me, I want to die." (Controversial is the wrong word. If there were ever heated arguments about this line, I'm sure they're over by now. But there's potential here for disagreements, possibly disagreements with emotions behind them, so I'm going to leave the word where it is.) You'll find a fic about it in the links at the end, but since it's been a while since I wrote that and now I finally have "Reptile Boy" in the spotlight, I'm going to do something that writers shouldn't do, and explain my train of thought while I was writing it.

The complaint leveled against the line (I gather) is that it's not healthy for Buffy to be feeling this way about a man she allegedly loves. This is true. It's not. Buffy and Angel, as anyone watching can see, are a long way from healthy at this point. They've admitted their feelings toward each other, and these are no ordinary feelings, but they're still dancing around them. They're seeing each other frequently - and apparently sharing the occasional kiss, even - but aren't "together". And now, she's insisting, and he's belittling her. Not healthy at all.

I may have mentioned in an earlier review that I'm fascinated by the mystery surrounding their relationship in the first season up to this point. What have they been up to? Why has it taken them so long to actually talk about where they stand? Only one thing it could be - they already know. They're in love, they can't be together, end of story. The mature, healthy thing to do would be to cleanse themselves of their attraction and get on with their lives, but, hello, that's impossible. So they push their boundaries. They pretend they're just working together, but hey, we can hold hands while working. Need somewhere for your tongue? How 'bout in my mouth?

Buffy shakes things up when she actually addresses this, with "One thing already has led to another", and I love her for it. On her side of the conversation, you can see the stance she's taking on their dilemma. "This isn't working, it's not good for us, something needs to change." Her not-so-controversial line is the clincher. She's not happy. In my story, it reflects a scenario she dreams up in which Angel finds her body and finally feels that he can kiss her without feeling guilty about it, but I don't think it's meant to be that literal. What she's going through right now is an understanding that her greatest desire can never be, and it hurts her badly, and every kiss is a reminder of it.

So I think she's justified. Obviously, she doesn't really want to die. Obviously, she's being a little overly dramatic. But Angel can be pretty thick, and this might be exactly what he needed. Hey you, guy who loves Buffy more than life! The thing that you are doing is causing her pain! Knock it off!

Wow, I'm usually nicer to Angel than this. Okay, now I'll look at things from his perspective. Right now, he's still very unsure of himself, though he doesn't know about the curse. He has without a doubt considered in great depth what a relationship with him would mean for Buffy, and come out with the conclusion that it would do more harm than good. He thinks that Buffy agrees, because they've talked about it at least once before ("this can't ever"), but he also knows that she's in love with him. (Which, sidebar, is one thing I love about how their romance is portrayed. There's never any "She'll be fine, she doesn't really care about me anyway." He makes his decisions based on what's best for her, but factors in her feelings toward him as part of that, even if he never knows why she loves him.) As far as he can tell, they've been maintaining this imperfect professionalism together, but he's not surprised that she's the first one to crack. And realistically, he shouldn't be. She is young, she's less jaded than him, less cautious, and less willing to endure years of loneliness.

As always, he's trying to protect her. He intuits that he's dangerous without knowing why - he might be having more trouble controlling his bloodlust than he lets on, or he might not trust himself to keep his sex drive turned low. He might be thinking long-term, imagining all of the opportunities that Buffy would miss if she's tied to a dead end partner like him. Unfortunately, he chooses to express these concerns by telling her she doesn't know what she wants. (Which is a rather disappointing line. Can we not have the point spelled out so blatantly, please?) He's already angry, it seems: Why does Buffy have to make this hard for him? Why can't she just go with the plan they agreed upon, in which she lives a happy fulfilling life without him?

So, there's plenty of fuel for his bad conversational decisions. He knows his vampirism is to blame for the danger he poses to her, and tied into that is his age, so that's what he mentions. All of his arguments are based in "We can't." He's caught completely off-guard when Buffy and Willow fight back against something entirely different: "You don't want to."

Of course he does want to, but his brain is going dangerdangerdanger, and his mouth is just trying to come up with better ways to say it. I find it telling that he goes with "out of control", and that Buffy has such a perfect comeback. She's right - for any other couple, it's supposed to be out of control. But, danger! The episode's plot is perfectly constructed to defeat that idea. Buffy gets into trouble by not being Angel's girlfriend, and Angel begins to realize that her happiness, at least for the present, is a greater priority. He can be there for her, love her, not destroy her life, and make use of whatever time they have in whatever way she wants. The last part is of course the most thematically important for the plot we're currently dealing with, because it means he stops treating her like a child and accepts that hey, sometimes the girl doesn't want you to obsess about her mortality. Even though Willow's accusation of him giving Buffy the brush-off because he doesn't have time for a cup of coffee isn't anywhere close to accurate, it's still a valid point. Whatever his reasons for rejecting her, they made her feel unwanted, and he needs to do whatever it takes to fix that.

Also I read somewhere once that the potential "ick factor" of their age difference is dealt with by making Buffy the one who's in control, and that starts here. I firmly believe that their ages are equal in every way that matters. Angel has the wisdom of his years, but his maturity is right around Buffy's, and Buffy's is far beyond that of a typical sixteen year old. She's the one who lives in the world, she's the one who has the most at stake, she's calling the shots, as it should be.

Cordelia and Boyfriends: So, here's a thing. Cordelia is probably the canon character that I relate to the absolute least, and that includes the males, demons, and Miss Edith. But her routine about how to reel in a guy with your active listening? I do that. Just not to reel in guys. I can't help it. I've convinced myself that what people want is someone who looks like she's paying attention and impressed by your humor, and since it's not altogether easy to cultivate that impression, I work at it fairly hard during most conversations. And, just like Cordelia, I often miss everything that the person actually said to me, because hell if I can appear to be listening and also listen at the same time. The exaggerated laugh is part of it. Mine is more convincing than Cordy's, but it's not usually genuine. Most people aren't funny; I can't help that.

Anyway, this episode adds one to the pile for Cordelia's failed romances. He doesn't die, but it's kinda worse than that. I feel sorry for her, and that might be just because I can finally empathize. She's not naturally shy like I am, so it's not a simple case of nerves for her, but both of us have a goal, and the goal is for people to like us. For Cordy, it's especially important for wealthy attractive men to like her, because whether or not she'll admit it at this point, her plan is to marry one and secure her lifetime wealth and (she assumes) happiness. I'm not judging her for this. I can't. She's preparing for the future in her own way, and it happens to involve dating rather than choosing a career. So what?

The hole in the plan, of course, is revealed right within the episode. Wealthy rich men aren't necessarily good husbands. Indeed, some of them could make your life a living hell (or feed you to a giant snake, whatever). Cordy's task is a lot more difficult than she realizes. If she knew that she wasn't shallow enough to require more than money to make her happy, she'd probably turn her sights to another kind of man - or away from dating altogether. Either way, she would have to lose the fake laugh routine; that won't attract the right kind of person to share her life with. Right now, she still thinks she's shallow, but she'll spend the season realizing she isn't, and for her, it's a theme that will continue for as long as we're watching her.

Of course, we can note right now that she enjoys talking to Xander, and vice versa. Oh come on! It would have been so easy to ignore him, but no, she banters.

You know, the hours I've spent actually watching this show are so limited that when I look at Cordy talking to this girl, I still think, "Whoa! Is that Amy?"

...Seriously, doesn't she look like Amy?

Willow and feelings (mine): Willow is totally shipping Buffy and Angel. You'd think I'd be oozing love on her for that, right? You'd be wrong! See, Willow and Buffy have this code. Willow supports every relationship that Buffy wants to pursue. Buffy supports every relationship that Willow wants to pursue. It doesn't matter what kind of relationship it would be, or whether the crush in question is potentially a good romantic partner - if Buffy wants it, Willow wants it, and vice versa. While this is really very true to the lives of teenage girls, especially BFFs, it's not a great policy. Buffy's having sexy dreams about a vampire; the last thing she needs is more encouragement to yearn after him. What she does need is a disinterested analysis of the pros and cons of getting involved with Angel, so she has a basis for deciding for herself whether or not to ignore them.

Willow doesn't have that, okay, that's fine, she's the same age as Buffy and with even less dating experience. But she's making it harder by not admitting that she doesn't know how to handle it, by instead getting excited on Buffy's behalf and coming up with ways to snare that sexy vampire. Buffy can't look at this objectively, and that includes not being able to dismiss her friend's advice - especially since Willow is kind of the only one talking to her about it at all. Soon she'll be coaxing Willow to make a move with Oz. Later, Willow will approve of Riley; Buffy will approve of Tara (after a bit of static, granted). They'll get angry at the love interests on each other's behalves, but they'll never be the ones to issue the initial warning. Willow doesn't really ship Buffy/Angel, she ships Buffy/Whoever Buffy Wants.

Xander and Bus Stations: I'm not going to say anything about bus stations, that's just how I want to label my thoughts about Xander from now on. I don't expect to collect a lot of agreement on this, but I really don't have a problem with the way he rags on Cordelia at this point. He knows something she doesn't - that the hot rich guys aren't going to work out for her - and he's holding her to a higher standard than she is herself. Granted, he's only doing it because he's enraged that he won't be considered as a match for her because he lacks the qualities that she wants and he knows they're superficial, so it's purely personal, but it's a legitimate thing to be angry about. She didn't start off with a reason to hate him, she just decided he was beneath her. It's not surprising that his bitterness turned into a need to find appalling insults to hurl at her.

Giles and Objects: You didn't think I would forget, did you?

Here's Giles with a bracelet, sadly a bit hard to see. I tried.

Here's Giles with a sword. And Buffy! Hehe, it's like Gilesvision.

Here's Giles with a sword again, only this time, it's behind his back!

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:

0 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S2E04: "Inca Mummy Girl"

2/15/2018

0 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
2.04: What Is That Girl?

Psst. Is that your baby? What's it doing with those dingoes?

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!

Here's Giles with a magnifying glass.

Here's Giles with an icepack. Bonus Buffy!

Here's a better one of Giles with a magnifying glass.

Here's Giles with a cup of tea! Probably already had one or two of those, but to me they never get old.

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:

0 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S2E03: "School Hard"

2/14/2018

0 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
2.03: A Lot More Fun

Everyone uses this screenshot, but honestly, why wouldn't you?

You cannot overestimate the importance of this episode to the future of the show. Plus, it's good!

Before we get into that, though, I need to tell you about how much I love Drusilla. In fact, consider this my Drusilla tribute. The moment she showed up, she became my favorite Buffyverse villain, and that hasn't changed (although it does get temporarily adjusted whenever Angelus shows his face). In fact, she's one of my favorite characters, period.

So I was watching this episode, and I was thinking about Drusilla, and I was comparing myself to Drusilla, and I realized I have a few things in common with her, which is great! Or maybe not. And there were also some things I don't have in common with her. So I made a chart. It just seemed logical.

You can use this in case you get confused about which of us is which. Onwards!

Because Spike and Dru Is Why: A couple episodes ago I mentioned a memory of a moment that put me on the path of B/A shipping. Apparently that happened before I was on the path to this becoming my favorite show, because there's no particular moment I remember for that, but there are characters, and those characters are Spike and Dru. (The relevant quote from my real-life self circa 2008 or thereabouts is "The vampires are so much better in this season!" I don't remember at what point I said it, but it was most definitely in Season 2.)

I had heard of Spike, but not Drusilla. I had some vague notion that the first season was supposed to be the campiest and things would improve from there, but forget that, let's look at it like an unspoiled fan. The first season sets up this format of a Big Bad, which harries Buffy until she defeats it in the season finale. Nobody's complaining about that, but it's a given that the Master made you yawn a bit. Possibly the niftiest thing about him was that he took on a protege, who survived the first season and ominously showed up in the second one, promising us a new antagonist for Buffy. Possibly a much stronger one! I mean, he's anointed. Now she's in trouble.

So the Anointed One has that much going for him. He's got some kind of power and we really don't know anything about it. The entire Sunnydale underworld seems to obey him without a second thought. Children are creepy, we all know that.

Unfortunately, he's also totally lame. Aside from his youthful appearance, his whole schtick is rehashing what the Master gave us, and honestly, the youthful appearance doesn't have much to recommend it either. If we're into the genre, we've seen child vampires before, or at least some kind of child monster. We swallow it because we're aware that we're watching a horror show and we like that it's respecting horror tropes. Sort of like the vampires with their dark rituals - traditionalism has its value.

But not to Spike. He doesn't care about traditions. He skips the dark rituals. He isolates the symbol of the horror trope that the show is leaning on, stuffs it in a cage, and KILLS IT DEAD. "From now on we're gonna have a little less ritual and a little more fun around here." Thanks, Joss! I mean, Spike!

Come to think of it, I kind of sound like I'm describing the concept behind Cabin in the Woods, huh? Well, no surprise that that's an old pet.

This is the first time that a Big Bad is introduced, only to be killed and replaced by another. In fact, that kind of twist is never again pulled off effectively for the next five seasons, which makes it all the more amazing that Season 2 does it twice. You thought you knew what was coming? Hell no. From now on, you're not just watching because it touches you when Willow smiles or Buffy cries, or because there are going to be jokes and ugly demons that you don't want to miss. You're watching because it's the only way you're ever going to find out what happens.

I wish I could have been there when the writers took a look at what they had done so far, thought about how to improve on it, and realized suddenly (I imagine it coming suddenly, okay) that they could create interesting villains. Was it something they seized on after admitting that they had to off the Anointed One before the actor yielded to his pesky adolescent habit of visibly aging? Did someone point out that it was possible within the framework of the mythology for soulless demons to have their own personalities? Was there a sense of trepidation over upsetting the rules of horror?

However it happened, you can't deny that they hit the jackpot with Spike and Drusilla. Every aspect of the characters, at least in their initial appearance, is perfect: the dialogue, the background, the costumes, and the casting (dear God, the CASTING). Most of all, the way the two of them complement each other. I'm not saying that they have more chemistry than Buffy and Angel, 'cause I'm physically incapable of it (and it's not true), but they had something of their own which nobody did better than them. I'd venture to say that Spike and Drusilla are the most artistically designed couple in the 'verse. The similarities in their features work in harmony with the contrast of their coloration and wardrobe. They both look like vampires, and neither looks like any vampire you've ever seen before. They move like dancers around each other, just as their voices weave around each other. That famous shot of them turning in unison after almost kissing makes my mouth water. I don't know how they're even real.

And they're evil. They're so evil. They're a big bowl of evil with evil sprinkles. And they're in love. They're so in love. They're...wait, I'm contradicting myself.

We all get to squabble over whether Buffy loved Spike, but it's less common to deny that Spike loved Buffy. That Spike loved Drusilla is pretty much a given. I've said so plenty of times, for the sake of simplicity. Truth is, though, I don't believe that love is possible without a soul. Spike and Dru were all about jealousy and affection - also loyalty, which is hard to place on the morality spectrum but ultimately isn't an aspect of altruistic love. (Sorry, Rainbow Dash.) Anyway, we find out in the end that nothing they share is enough to keep them together, so the loyalty itself is a fail.

Their sham romance, however, is exactly what makes them so fascinating. It's immediately evident that this kind of relationship is not normal among vampires, and the old school ones won't easily accept it. (This might come across fairly subtly in the aired episode, but check a deleted scene I quoted below for more of it.) In addition, Spike and Dru themselves call it love, and play it up to the max, with or without eyes on them. I love how domestic they are, and how easily they converse, consulting with each other or just trading sweet nothings. They have to know they're making a bad impression that way, but they don't care - they do what they want. Eventually, everyone learns that they do what they want, and that's when it starts working in their favor: rebel chic. Follow me, because I'm sure as hell not going to follow you.

This is especially important as part of Spike's character - Drusilla not so much, since her insanity negates a lot of what we could learn about her from her actions. Spike continues to disregard rules right on through the end of the series and beyond. And beyond that too. (Dammit, Spike, you're dead! Dead characters don't star in the next season! It's a rule!) To me, this is the key to his big moment, the acquisition of his soul. Why did he want one when no vampire ever had before? Well, because he doesn't care what vampires are supposed to want. Breaking tradition is frowned upon, and given his success with it in the past, that's only going to egg him on.

Consistency makes my little heart go pitter-patter.

Oh Buffy, and Her Mom: Moving on to the other characters, though I have much less to say about them: I love Buffy in this episode. There really isn't any kind of straightforward lesson for her to learn, or another iteration of accepting her destiny. We just get to see that there's a whole lot of pressure on her, and she's doing a damn good job with it.

The hardest moment for me is her mother saying "What I don't want is to be disappointed in you again." Joyce has no idea about Buffy's extremely legitimate reasons for the incidents in her past, but even if the criticism were deserved, it's harsh. Buffy really needs some positive reinforcement from her family...although, I guess that's what she gets at the end of the episode. Maybe that's the Aesop. It was certainly gratifying when they made up at the end. It was gratifying to the power of Never Forget This when Joyce hit Spike with an axe.

One way or another, Buffy kicks a lot of ass and everyone except Snyder respects her for it at the end, which is also helpful for the sake of Snyder's character development inasmuch as he has any.

Because B/A: Buffy and Angel's relationship doesn't really progress much here, which is fine, because each gets some good individual attention and also there's just the sweetest thing ever when Angel first shows up. Allow me to repeat what I said on Tumblr at some point about this scene - Situation's dire, everyone is watching, Angel is all grim and down to business, and Buffy still starts flirting with him the moment he walks into the room. Best girl ever.

And it works! She gets him to smile! This is the kind of thing, I guess, that gives them the rep of having an immature romance, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. Angel won't attempt to teach Buffy how to be a 240-year-old. Instead he'll learn how to be a teenager.

More fog about whether they're dating, btw. The dialogue gives us both yes and no, but also confirms that both of them and everyone they know are aware that there are romantic feelings between them.

Giles and Objects: I didn't see any clear shots of Giles holding anything except books. Frowny face.

Cordelia and Boyfriends: No boyfriends, but Cordy almost looks like a Scooby now if you squint. That happened fast. She doesn't act like she enjoys their company, but she's in on the secret, so she helps whittle stakes. Very cool, mean girl!

Angel and Spike: They really start out at a level, don't they? Angel has mentor status, but is unable to fool Spike (which is impressive; he can basically fool anyone else). They don't exactly fight as such, but we don't get the impression that Angel would win.

Also, shared history! I swoon. We even get introduced to the idea of Angel being Spike's sire, before it's cruelly wrested from us. (I have a favorite fanwank theory for this, but I'd rather explain it in fanfic form, and I've already done one for this episode.) So much background being established, and we don't even have the Angelus/Drusilla part of the story yet! Also I have a serious love-on for Angel playing Angelus, and this is the first time it happens. Sorry, I can see the quality of this synopsis diminishing, but I can't stop listing things I love here even when I don't actually have anything to say about them.

Not sure what to do with Spike's outrage at Angel betraying his race. Does that reinforce what I said about his loyalty, or does it contradict what I said about his rebelliousness? Wait, does his loyalty contradict his rebelliousness? I don't think so, but I'm squirreling this one away to poke at later.

Something about Xander: What Xander really needs to prove, regarding his feelings about Angel, is that it's not about jealousy but distrust. If he fears for his friends' safety around a vampire, even a supposedly reformed one, I couldn't blame him for that. If it's just because Angel got the girl, shame shame. If it's the latter but he pretends it's the former, more shame yet, and at times it really does seem like that's the case.

Here, he believes he's seen Angel finally showing his true colors, and he claims (rather bravely!) that he always knew. I'm sure he means it. A few minutes later he's proven wrong. Does he still mean it? Does this change anything about the assumptions he's been making? Should it?

That's all I got. IT'S PLENTY. But here's an image.

It's just Buffy's drawer of Things to Keep Secret From Mom, but I noticed something awesome in there. Brass knuckles, with spikes! I want to see her use those!

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:

0 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S2E02: "Some Assembly Required"

2/13/2018

0 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
2.02: The Proverbial Wacky

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 know I should have honored Jenny here, but I couldn't pick a font for her.

New feature! When couples (or "It's complicated"s) argue, I'll tell you which one is right, so you don't have to decide for yourself!

Buffy/Angel: When Buffy and Angel have it out in the cemetery, my thought has always been that Buffy has all the higher ground. Her tone when she asks if he's jealous is just so understanding and sensitive - she's listening, not accusing. Granted, she's a teenage girl and she probably loves the idea of Angel getting jealous over her, but she could just as easily exploit that by teasing him or pretending to be angry right off. If he had admitted it at that point, she probably would have absolved him instantly and apologized for the dance with Xander - but then we wouldn't have a subplot, or that conversation at the end.

Sidebar: the first time I watched this show, during this scene I said to my companion (who'd been a fan for years), "I'm enjoying their relationship more than I thought I would." It's the closest thing I can find in my memory to the moment that I became a B/A shipper, so I treasure it a little bit. The line that specifically sparked that comment was, I think, "See, whenever we fight, you always bring up the vampire thing!" I laughed; I wasn't expecting the romance to be funny. I winced; I wasn't expecting the romance to contain pointed insults. I pondered the implications of Angel being a vampire who didn't want to be reminded that he was a vampire; I wasn't expecting the romance to make me think at all. Basically, I wasn't expecting to care about the romance. I'd already known I wasn't that kind of fan, and nothing about B/A looks that interesting on the wrapper. Seeing two lonely hardworking people get fed up with navigating a relationship that they refused to acknowledge as a relationship and resorting to petty bickering was something that came out of left field. I knew practically the whole story before I watched it, but it kept surprising me anyway.

Anyway! So, tipping my hat to Buffy for holding onto her cool for longer than Angel did, but later in the episode I had to re-evaluate it from his point of view. He knows how much Buffy and Xander care about each other, and he knows how much Xander desires her. He also knows that Buffy doesn't desire him back, but things happen. She spends all this time with the guy, he has the astonishing ability to see her in the sunlight, she wants a boyfriend - sure, there's a chance she could go for the obvious solution. Of course it's going to give Angel some pain to visualize that possibility, and then she holds out on easing his doubts, and then lies to him about where she's going to be. He sees her next when she walks into the library with Xander. If we didn't have the background to that, well crap. It certainly doesn't look like she's avoiding Angel because he hurt her feelings.

Another sidebar: a thing is just now occurring to me. I ship Faith/Spike in part because they make such a perfect square with Buffy/Angel - Faith's relationship with Buffy is much like Spike's with Angel; Spike's history with Buffy has a lot of parallel to Faith and Angel's. But way back before either of those characters were introduced - they kind of already made a square with Buffy/Angel, Xander/Cordelia, didn't they? Unable to attain the ones they really had their sights on, Xander and Cordelia hooked up with each other instead. Added bonus that Buffy and Cordy had a running theme of rivalry not limited to Angel's affections, and Xander and Angel kept up an enmity long past the point when Buffy had made her choice. Even the slash pairings line up: Angel/Spike and Buffy/Faith are the most popular ones, but Xander/Angel and Buffy/Cordy seem to have a proportionately smaller following, too.

So, having discovered that, should I ship Cordy/Xander now? Not necessarily, but Season 2 soon will! It's even hinted here when she spills out her gratitude to him directly after he laments about even vampires getting dates. Under the surface, could the attraction have started here, with Xander and Cordelia finding sympathy for each other when they see that they have this in common?

Okay, where was I going with Buffy and Angel and their adorable squabbles? Probably just that Angel's eventual confession of jealousy was born from noting his own reaction to seeing Buffy with Xander. I mean, he didn't even greet her, he just turned his attention right to Xander. That was mean, Angel. But it puts more kindling on the element to the Buffy/Angel romance that I was talking about in my last review - they're not dating. They have no claim on each other. If Buffy wanted to spend a night making out with Xander, she wouldn't be cheating on Angel, and if Angel got some cuddle time in with Cordy, that's his right, too. But everyone knows it's not. Cordy consciously competes with Buffy, Xander makes cracks about a "one-woman vamp", Willow asks wink-wink-nudge-nudge questions, and Angel eventually admits that he is in fact jealous.

I know his little speech at the end was essentially nothing more than a script necessity to tie up the subplot, but I love it. The exact reason that he's jealous of Xander, which he states so openly, is a part of his character which is played consistently from this point on. He doesn't think Buffy prefers another man to himself - he's dead, not stupid. It's not her feelings that he wishes would change, it's his own role in her life. The moment that Buffy says, "I don't love Xander" is huge, not only because it deliberately puts all of her cards on the table but because it implies contrast: she doesn't love Xander (but that's not the case for you.) And he doesn't bat an eye: "I know." For him, the hardest part of being in love with Buffy won't be that she doesn't reciprocate, but that she does, and when he leaves her he'll not only be denying her to himself, but denying himself to her. He doesn't know yet that he'll be leaving her, but he knows their love can only lead to trouble, and it's starting right here.

Also they hold hands as she walks him home and it's beautiful and they're so sad and I love them. They're not a couple. They're just soulmates.

Giles/Jenny: Although I do love their flirtations and grown-up fumblings, I have to say what interests me most about their first date is not how it affects their own relationship, but how it affects Giles' relationship with the Scoobies. (Anyway he and Jenny don't argue this time so I can't tell you who's right.) As I keep watching I'm going to try to keep an eye on exactly what place Giles has in the group beyond the obvious roles of mentor, sage, adult, and exposition guy. Honestly I even want to challenge 'father figure' a little - it's definitely in there, but perhaps not to the extent that most fans assume.

This episode is a good example. Giles, for once, is the one who needs advice, and the kids, while indulging in some good-natured teasing, are actually helpful about it. He's even receptive to their tips and nervous about losing their support when the time comes. It's an underplayed, very sweet theme: they care about him. He respects them. They're really a team now, not just a few teenage adventurers hanging out under the supervision of a wizardly old man. (It also doesn't hurt that these scenes have Xander's humor at its cutest and funniest. Buffy's is good too.)

Can't figure out if Xander and Willow were deliberately trolling him by crashing his date, or they were genuinely oblivious, or they just wanted to check up on him. Either way, though, he was definitely not the authority figure this time.

I think what I like best about Jenny is how much she likes to have fun. As an oldschool computer geek, she's already breaking the mold a little bit, living in the world instead of shutting herself up with incantations and laptops. I'm sure she knew that Giles wasn't planning on going to the game, but she also knew that he'd enjoy it if he gave it a chance, and she was his best hope of giving it a chance. Not only that, but she gives football a pretty fair appraisal - I mean, we're all aware it's just an excuse for mindless violence, right? - but she loves it anyway and she's not ashamed. I like Mexican too, Jenny! Let's have lunch before you die!

Giles and Objects:

Here's Giles with a shovel.

Here's Giles with all sorts of things!

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:

0 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S2E01: "When She Was Bad"

2/12/2018

0 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
2.01: Mean Girl

We're on Season Two! These guys should look more excited.

Xander and Needs: It’s kind of refreshing and kind of just plain WEIRD that Xander doesn’t try to obscure his crush on Buffy at all. We already know at this point that he’s a loyal friend to her with or without romantic reciprocation. Isn’t that a better cover for wanting to see her than “I have certain needs”? He even pretends (fake-pretends) that he doesn't care when she's getting back - well, that's kind of rotten of you, Xander. Willow cares when she gets back.

Xander's being defined too much by his unrequited lust, at this point, but it's not the writing; he's doing it to himself. What was he like before he had an object of affection? Did he not like himself without the posturing? Whenever we see him really shine, like when the vampire attacks, it's at a moment when he had to act without thinking it through. (The choreography gave his punch a little more thunk than he rightfully should have had but I do not grudge that.) His impulses are in the right place, but he covers them up with something worse, constructing a shabbier version of himself to send out into the world.

I can't quite parse this, but right now he's a far cry from "the one who sees everything" that he's supposed to become. Willow knows Buffy's being mean; he not only denies that anything's wrong, but he leaves the conversation hanging there. (And doesn't get the ice cream nose!) Is this an aspect of his crush taking him over, or is just plain dumb?

Willow and Being a Nerd: Willow's feelings for him Xander always frustrate me, not because I can't understand where she's coming from - he's got a lot of fine attributes, which she knows better than anyone, and anyway teenage crushes aren't supposed to make sense - but because I can't figure out how it affects their dynamic. He knows about it, she knows he knows, but they still function as best friends and he rattles on about Buffy and she teases him in good nature. Is her heart not being crushed, like, every minute? Is he really okay with that? I think we're supposed to assume that he's oblivious, but I don't really buy that. Or I just don't have a lot of sympathy for oblivious. Anyway, he does start flirting with her in the cold open, so he has to be aware of having some responsibility over the state of her heart.

Aside from that, though. "Well, sure, if you're ALWAYS scissors, of course your tendons are gonna stretch --" This here is a quote you forget as soon as you hear it, but several years in the future, you realize that hey, not only does Willow lecture Xander about his choices regarding his health, but Xander always makes the same move in a game whose entire purpose is to be random. I love them both.

The movies they're quoting are all geek movies. This elevates Willow in my eyes, since she's usually just the smart side of nerd while Xander's the speculative media side. I just love the idea of them having sci-fi movie marathons together. Did she love Planet of the Apes, or just tolerate it for Xander's sake?

Let me just go see if I can find the Witness ice cream scene, since I haven't seen that one...no luck. Apparently Harrison Ford is in it, though? Maybe I'll just have to watch the whole thing.

Buffy and the Show's Title: And, finally. Buffy's appearance. Isn't it interesting that the title of the episode is in the past tense? I think this is a message to viewers - the Buffy that you see here is temporary. Later she'll look back at this as the time that she was bad, because she won't be bad forever. It's a relief to know that before you go into the episode, because a show that stars a character you can't like at all is generally a show you don't want to keep watching, but, for me, it's not enough.

My problem with "When She Was Bad" is more or less unavoidable: Buffy's barely in it. Her part is played by some mean girl who looks like her and slays vampires. And of course that's the whole point - Buffy isn't herself, and she needs the events of the episode to come back to who she really is. I like seeing that happen, but it's so early in the series to have to deal with a personality change so drastic in the main character. Especially since it's the season premier: while every other element of the show is setting the stage for what's going to spin out over the season, Buffy's doing the exact opposite, and it's jarring.

Fortunately I knew better at the time than to let it bother me too much, and now I know even better than that because I'm a raving fangirl. Buffy's shadow side does have purpose, it makes sense, it's played well, and it's interesting. Objectively that totally balances it against "not very enjoyable", but retrospect does help.

The signs may be there as soon as she appears, but for me, the first clear hint of Bad Buffy is her indifference to seeing Giles. When she calls Xander and Willow "losers" and "sloppy", she could be kidding with them - that's not really the way that Buffy kids, but based on the first season alone, we don't really know that yet. But not looking forward to seeing her Watcher? That's an outright denial of the bond they formed last year; she's relegating him to his position as a teacher, just as she'll try to relegate Willow and Xander to mere friends, keeping them outside of her Slayer duties. What she learned in Season One was mostly about herself - she doesn't know yet that there's a Scooby Gang, that they need to be both friends and warriors to work right, and that her acceptance of her team will be what sets her apart from other Slayers. This is right at the center of her character and the show itself, so this episode is somewhat pivotal in that it explores the theme directly.

Can't get out of here without discussing the famous dance with Xander at the Bronze. I love how in chorus fandom is about this scene. Everyone thinks Buffy's being reprehensible. Everyone gets mad at her and feels at least a little sorry for someone else in the scene. And I'm just fascinated. I can't help it. That was just such a sophisticated, wide-ranging act of manipulation. Three different people, all of them deeply wounded by this, each for a different reason, and all Buffy has done is dance.

Without making any excuse for her: why is this so bad? Can't she be sexy if she wants? (And damn, she's good at it.) She led Xander to the dance floor; she didn't force him there. All of this is well within her rights. Angel has no claim on her, Willow has no claim on Xander, and Xander is kind of getting exactly what he wants. But she's hurting them. She knows it. She might be deliberately giving the finger to Angel and Xander to tell them she's uncomfortable and they need to back off, but they haven't really done anything to make her uncomfortable, and you'd think she'd try saying a word about it first if she was. And she's got no quarrel at all with Willow. This is all about hurting people because she can. The dance itself is almost irrelevant. Her friends are affected because they know there's nothing here to interpret.

I don't think dream sequences are anyone's favorite thing, but I really like the one with Giles turning into the Master. The nifty part is that there's doubt about how much of it is really dream: it could be entirely, since nothing that happens before the reveal is vital, but Willow and Xander are so in character and everything is so normal that it makes me wonder about the power of Buffy's subconscious. Either she's got a deep undercurrent of affection and understanding for her friends going on beneath the fear and trauma, or this is a real moment mixed in with the dream. Reminds me of Inception - does Buffy remember sitting down in the lobby?

Also, there's the slightly terrifying nature of the dream itself. When I was a kid, my worst nightmares involved my parents turning into monsters (or otherwise betraying me in a child-accessible way). I still can't think of anything scarier than a trusted, beloved parental figure turning on you. It's almost a relief when he turns out to be the Master in disguise - at least Giles wasn't the one strangling Buffy. And Xander and Willow, not only being useless but not even noticing is the icing on the betrayal. If this is how she sees the world right now, I can't blame her at all for the way she's been acting.

Another Bad Buffy scene I love is her torturing the "Tara" vampire with her cross. Again, why is this bad? It's not wrong to kill a vampire, but it's wrong to hurt one? Definitely yes - the reason that we avoid suffering in others is not because they don't deserve to suffer, but because it's not for us to decide who deserves to suffer. Angel and Xander see what's wrong; although they couldn't care less about the fate of Tara, they're afraid of what this is doing to Buffy. It's clear enough here that hurting soulless creatures is nonetheless wrong, and I believe that moral stance holds throughout the series, but we won't see another example of it until Spike gets chipped.

The Buffy and Angel Show: My interest in early-S2 B/A is actually more about the mechanics of it than the little subtleties in their interactions. Is this a relationship? What kind? They're not dating, and it doesn't sound like they've been in contact at all since Buffy left Sunnydale. On the other hand, her denial of there being an "us" and her frigid rejection of him (which is immediate, unlike her reunions with the others) make it obvious that she's harboring feelings. I'm so curious about how they're handling this without setting any rules or boundaries. Angel has outright admitted to Giles that he's in love with Buffy; Buffy has been open enough about her own attraction. They deliberately avoided each other until - what? Something happened after "Prophecy Girl" that we didn't see, and it won't be the last time. One thing's clear, though: the story of them dating and their establishment as a couple will never be concurrent with the story of them falling in love. If there's love between them at all, it's already alive by the time we get to Season 2, even though nothing else about the two of them is defined.

I'm not totally immune to the subtleties of their interactions, of course. See how direct he is about her attitude? There's not even a lead-up to asking what she's afraid of, he just goes there. And later, "You're not as strong as you think." Ouch! Is he allowed to say that? I don't think so! But that's Angel. I don't think he's ever cared about her strength so much as how she uses it.

I like this screencap:

Cordelia and Boyfriends: No boyfriend this time. The script mentioned a jock at her heels during one scene, but he didn't get a name or a line even before he was cut out. Cordy's a bit on the sideline in this episode, but her dialogue is fantastic, especially when she tells Buffy off in the aisle. This isn't the first time we've seen her do any good, but I think it's a first for her particular style of doing good. It's not just a woman showing strength, it's Cordy showing a strength that's uniquely hers, contributing something that she alone can contribute. Not to mention that she's angry about the way Buffy's treating others - I think she might care about them! Also, this was left out:

CORDELIA
...so I'm gonna do you a favor.

BUFFY
Joyous me.

CORDELIA
Your friends can't do it, 'cause they
like you. And they're sort of afraid
of you.

Maybe that makes everything too clear to be stated outright, but I love it and also believe it. Cordy isn't afraid of Buffy. You know who Cordy's afraid of? NO ONE. (Also great segue with the vampires kidnapping her, yay!)

Giles and Objects:

Here he is with a book. I know that happens in every episode and the picture quality isn't great here, but I like the pose.

Here is Giles with a soda. He doesn't like it, though.

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:

0 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S1E12: "Prophecy Girl"

2/10/2018

2 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
1.12: Origin Story

Check out all the Season One heroes standing over their victory! It's kind of like that iconic image from "Chosen", but with a better cast. (WENT THERE.)

Hello source of all the latest news from the underworld! There is so much in the Jenny/Giles scenes that could have been turned into entire spin-offs but was never brought up again. Who's Luca? How do you get on his mailing list? Why does Giles have the Bible memorized? He's not even Christian. And check it out, Aurelius was the guy doing the prophecy-writing.

...And all that is just to say, this is the review in which I originally began to expand my mental checklist for what I intended to cover for each episode. Some features, such as the character sections and the moniker "Brother Luca's Global Mailings" were born here, and I've tried to reorder the paragraphs so that it makes more sense to read for the first time, but my efforts may have made it worse.

Xander and Bus Stations: To some degree I feel like it's not fair to judge Xander in this episode. It's the first season, he's a kid, and he didn't do any lasting harm. But damn, he's just too symbolic for his own good. There was a letter in Season 8 once that talked about Xander deserving Buffy's love just like every nice guy dreaming about his hot best friend does, and I think that mentality is still in play - maybe it's a minority within this particular fandom, but the real world parallel is too common to leave it alone. At this point in the show, Xander's already been a great friend to Buffy, and we know he'll keep it up for many years, but how does that justify him asking her for more? He's shown that he's conscious of Willow's feelings toward him, so if there's anyone who should understand that romantic reciprocation can't be deliberately induced, he's the guy. I'm uneasy saying this about anyone, even someone fictional, but I've identified his problem and it's this: he needs less self-confidence.

I'm not totally insensate to his pain when Buffy rejects him, but I feel her side so, so much more. She's completely classy, honest, and sympathetic about it, and he still insults her and walks away. This is one aspect of the unrequited crush problem that Xander can't relate to, since Willow has never asked him out: to be put on the spot by someone who you don't want to date, hurt, or lose is a horrible feeling. A lesser woman would have dodged it by accepting and then letting the date fall apart in an awkward mess. Xander has no idea what she's just done for his sake.

However, he does protect Willow during the earthquake and he doesn't do a terrible job with his go-out-with-me speech. Oh, and he helps save the world. He's also got a knack for finding the humor in his pain. (Country music is funny.) See, I'm not anti-Xander. I feel real affection for him.

I feel more for Willow, of course, because her rejection of him when he wants her as his band-aid date wasn't just an act of sensitivity. It was powerful. If she'd been my friend in real life I might not have been sure that she'd have it in her.

One more thing that interests me about the Xander/Buffy subplot is that it doesn't directly tie in with the rest of the episode. You kind of expect them to reunite at the climax, him with an apology on his lips, her saying something that reaffirms their friendship. Instead you have to guess at the moments when each of them are thinking about it - Xander seeking out Angel, Buffy listening to her mom talk about the wrong person asking her to the prom. And indeed Xander's crush doesn't truly see a resolution until (holy crap) near the end of Season 8. This episode isn't a period at the end of that character arc, it's ellipses.

Cordelia and Boyfriends: Hey, Cordy's with a boy. Let's see what happens to him. His name's Kevin. Cordy thinks he's so sweet, and, actually, he doesn't do anything completely repellant. Maybe that's his mistake, although I'm pretty sure he'd be doomed either way.

The scene where Cordy bonds with Willow over men being annoying might be the first time I love her. She seriously likes this guy, and not just because he's popular and a promising investment for her future. She's happy about being with him, she's aware of the effect he's having on her, and it's making her nicer. You can see some actual esteem for Willow shining through - not to mention the way Cordy cries out Kevin's name and drops to her knees rather than screaming and running from the carnage in the AV room. It's sad to watch, but that massacre is an amazingly effective scene even by the standards of later seasons. Later there's a sign that Cordy was grieving for Kevin - sitting where they used to park.

(How the hell did they not see the bloody handprint before opening the door? It's right on top of the pig cartoon!)

Willow and My Feelings: Willow's scene with Buffy following the massacre is every bit as good. "I'm trying to think how to say it. To explain it so you'll understand." There's no judgment there and no resentment, but Willow does have something to say here and battle-hardened Buffy isn't really getting it. Willow's not the same person she was that morning. She's seen evil and experienced the reality of what just a few vampires can take from her. It's not just the lives of her friends; it's her entire world. She can't just let them continue, but she can't necessarily do anything about it either - and Buffy can. Willow's not telling her what she has to do, but Buffy hears it anyway.

Note another key line from Buffy near the climax - "I feel strong. I feel different." Every character experiences a change in "Prophecy Girl"; every one of them is a different person by the end of it.

Giles and Objects: If it's not universally agreed already that Tony Head is the best actor in the show, let's at least start counting votes. Giles is amazing in this episode. As soon as he shows up with his new best friend the Pergamum Codex, he learns about Buffy's fate and from then on we're just watching him deal with it. His fear when he sees her, his air of distraction, his overtired reactions are all the subtle signs of a stoic man losing it. It just drives home the point that this is really, really important to him - and personal. Just a few episodes ago, Buffy's death was his nightmare, and now it's coming true again.

Jenny is fantastic too. (Yay for a rewatch giving me heightened Jenny appreciation!) I love the way she and Giles are drawn to each other during a mystical catastrophe, not in a mystical way but because they're both intelligent enough to recognize it in each other and they know they need help from capable people. (And trusted ones - interesting how blunt Giles is about that, after the Moloch incident.) He snaps at her and she helps anyway.

I wish Willow had been more welcoming toward her. There's a teensy part of me that ships them. But their friendship is one more thing that changes by the end of the episode, isn't it?

So, I gather there are three basic ways to deal with a prophecy that you or a loved one is going to die, as demonstrated by these characters:

Angel: Denial. The prophecy doesn't really say that. You're reading it wrong.
Giles: Denial. The prophecy definitely says that, but maybe there's a way around it.
Buffy: Denial. Who cares what the prophecy says? No fight, no death. Get it?

This is an important, possibly vital, scene for the development of all three of them, but this time around, it's Buffy's style of denial that interested me the most. Had to wonder - would it work? If she just didn't show up for her death, would the Master still kill her somehow? I get the feeling that he wouldn't. He'd break free of his prison, go on a murder spree, and probably get started on the Age of Vampires, but Buffy would live on for the present. She'd still technically be the Slayer, so no new one would be called, but as long as she wasn't living up to it, she'd be safe.

Of course, there's nothing in the Codex that doesn't come to pass, so how does she get around that? Simple - if she didn't fight the Master, the prophecy in the Codex would not have been written. Yup, this is how I manage to believe in both free will and destiny. Once you've made your choice, the past is written to accommodate it and your destiny is formed. It needs some backward thinking but hey, what are prophecies for?

Buffy seems to unconsciously follow that philosophy. Certainly she makes her choice believing that she has a choice: after the moment of denial, she still seems to fear her impending death, but when she does step up to the sacrifice, it's not because she's accepted the inevitable. It's an act of courage, an understanding that her life is worth giving up for the lives of others. Once she made that decision, the prophecy popped into existence somewhere on the far end of the time stream.

Giles, relying on intellect rather than a heroic moral compass, isn't going to take it on faith that he or Buffy can rework anything that already exists. He is, however, familiar with the kind of twisty logic that lets Buffy die and fulfill the book but also live on. Without trying to guess the specifics on how that kind of happy ending could actually occur, he senses that there's a possibility for it and he goes back to the books to figure it out. He and Buffy are both right, in their ways, but he's not a lot of help sitting there with all his books.

More than either of them, Angel's being shaped by his dialogue in this scene, and he's the one who says the least. He'll spend the rest of his eight-season TV presence facing accusations of being a destiny hound, and this is the first strong piece of evidence for it. His denial is the feeblest kind out of the three: the thing in front of my face is not real. On the other hand, even he gets to be a little bit right. Giles kinda is reading the prophecy wrong, and it's kinda not that simple. Angel's convinced of the truth for all the wrong reasons. He's got a Giles mind and a Buffy heart, so while he knows rationally that the facts aren't lying, he also knows it's impossible that Buffy will die. He can't conceive of the journey ending so soon, and he knows that Buffy isn't a slave to fate even if he doesn't believe the same of himself.

My interpretation of Angel in this scene is that he's panicking. It looks different on him than it does on others, but he's caught up in the conflict of an unresolvable problem and it's making him stupid. Until Xander's intervention, he's set on trying to logic his way out of it - as far as I remember, the last time we see him take this approach. Can we assume he learned something from this first brush with prophecy?

Giles certainly did. His plan to take Buffy's place in the fight may have come to nothing, but it was the right thing to do. I'm so touched by the way he humbled himself after their confrontation. He openly admits that she was right, and he's genuinely frustrated when she has her change of heart and won't let him die for her. He even says "I don't care what the books say." As if his life alone isn't enough, here's his identity, too.

Whatever the rest of them go through, though, this is Buffy's story above all. I know each season officially has a theme, but I don't know what they are, so I made up my own. Season One's theme is accepting your destiny - not yielding to the pressure of outside influences, but knowing that who you are is worth being and what you can do is worth doing. Forever after, Buffy can be proud of being the Slayer. She did what nobody else could have done, and she did it because she wanted to.

Giles and Objects, Part 2: I saw some image of Giles recently, and I'm not even sure what it was, but I had a thought like "Man, I love Giles with a sword." And then I realized I'd had that kind of thought before. "Man, I love Giles with a banana." "Man, I love Giles with a computer." Apparently I just love Giles with objects. So I'm going to share that love with you.

Here's Giles with some books.

Here's Giles with a knife.

And here's Giles with an icepack.

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:

2 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S1E11: "Out of Mind, Out of Sight"

2/9/2018

0 Comments

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
1.11: Lolcat Edition

I made this edit. Maybe it will make you sad.

When I first watched the show, "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" wouldn't play, although the rest of the disc worked fine. I came back to it later in the series, or possibly after I had finished, and was rather pleasantly surprised - for S1, it's fairly sophisticated. Angel returns, Cordy turns into a real person, and ohhhhh, the loneliness.

It's a good theme, and one thing I really like is the care taken to show how each one of the main characters can feel invisible in his or her own way, and how it's believable for each one and threads right into where their characters are at this point in the show. It starts right in the teaser. Buffy's caught with medieval weapons spilling out of her bag and highlighting how different she is from her classmates - and then it turns out no one cares. Academic discussions are usually the one place where Willow can really shine, but Cordelia is upstaging her just by talking a lot (catch Willow rolling her eyes in the background!).

Cordelia and Boyfriends: This is an important episode for Cordy, but the first thing I noticed was how weak her taunts are sometimes. "Behold the weirdness" - uh, okay. Could that be intentional? Could it signify how inwardly insecure Cordy is about her own rudeness? Probably not! I mean sometimes bad writing is just bad writing so let's move on to her love life. This is another thing I should have been keeping track of: how many guys does she date before Xander (that we see)? How many of them meet with awful fates? I think she actually has worse luck than Xander does, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Is this a humor thing? Is it a more subtle way of showing how alone she is, outside of the context of this episode? Are the men being punished since after all most of them are jerks anyway? (Mitch is introduced in the shooting script as "hunk-du-jour", and his worthlessness is much in evidence.)

The friend who I watched the series with had seen both shows before, and had made a comment about how different Cordelia becomes. During "Prophecy Girl" I asked if this was her turning point, and he said, "Not really." But for me it was noticeable, because I hadn't seen this one, and this is her turning point. My friend was surely thinking about Higher Being Cordy, who had no clear path that brought her there, but this is where the real Cordy started. She's ruthless, she's self-absorbed, and she's lonely in her crowd, but she knows it and chooses it. That's what really divides us: not whether we're lonely, but how we deal with it.

Marcie's the example of loneliness in the main focus (how ironic), and you know what's weird? I kind of love her. It's disappointing that she had to go crazy and start killing people so she could be a sympathetic villain instead of a victim, but I guess we gotta get our conflict from somewhere, right? My drabble about her, posted in the links as usual, is titled with a joke about Season 8 - apparently the editor kept getting letters asking if Marcie would come back, and he wondered whence came this secret cult of Marcie Ross. I thought it was pretty odd and funny myself, but now I think I'm part of the cult. She's so sad. Buffy asks Cordelia why she doesn't just change her ways if she isn't happy, and maybe some watchers wonder why Marcie doesn't change her appearance or attitude or habits to attract more attention. But that's no kind of question at all. She can't change. She already knows what happens when she tries to be part of a conversation; she's not going to deliberately bring that pain onto herself.

Even with both series and a few years in fandom under my belt, it's still hard for me to like Cordelia sometimes. I've definitely never seen her as a character I can relate to. Sure, I'd rather be lonely all by myself, but this isn't just a matter of preference. Cordy and the other popular girls are destroying lives by ignoring or belittling the ones outside of their social circle. I don't mean to overstate the drama, but the way your peers treat you as a teenager will be with you until you die. There's as much of Columbine in "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" as there is in "Earshot".

So. Marcie's alone. Cordy's alone. Buffy and Willow are alone. Who else have we got?

The Buffy and Angel Show: Since I watched this one as a retrospect, it was interesting to see how Angel was used - the next time we see an episode wherein he appears but Buffy doesn't see him, it's "Pangs", and both times he states that he's avoiding her precisely because of her importance to him. Any relationship he has with another character, any act of his own, are always secondary. He exists because of Buffy, in both his own reality and on the meta level.

That's part of what made his further development so interesting, but also what makes him so interesting right now. When he talks to Giles, it's about Buffy, for Buffy, and through Buffy (as they only know about each other from what she's said to each of them). He barely even exists as his own entity, an impression reinforced by his lack of reflection and accepted by Angel's regret over it. Yet, he's right up Giles' alley, an intelligent person well-versed in the paranormal, and you can see the way they click in this scene (just like they do in "Pangs", in fact). There's a very brief acknowledgment of Angel's love for Buffy and the way he's chosen to deal with it, and then they get right to business. Even through my slashproof goggles, that scene looks like the librarian developing a crush on the vampire.

But Giles is afraid of him. Check out the stage directions for when he first sees who's in there with him: He looks about him -- in case he has to make a run or a fight for it. This doesn't stop here. Every character but Buffy and Xander (a case I'll revisit, I'm sure) is a little bit nervous around Angel, even before he loses his soul, and it's always just subtle enough to show us that they're not being bigoted. A vampire in the room is a legitimately frightening thing no matter how long it's been since he ate someone. Giles never forgets this, and I don't think he lets his guard down even in this initial encounter.

So what's the government up to with this training of invisible assassins, anyway? Eh. Training invisible assassins. If the plot had ever required one in a future episode, it would have been nice to "see" Marcie again, but the S1 scrap heap doesn't give much back. At least we can imagine that she was around later, informing on someone for the government (or for W&H) and being very quiet. MARCIE IS IN EVERY EPISODE, GUYS!

You know who else was introduced in this episode? The Codex. The Pergamum Codex - it has a full name! I'm convinced that this book is a character in its own right; I've forgotten every post-"Prophecy Girl" reference to it but I will be looking for them from now on. I even took a screencap, because I found the book surprisingly small. I think I described it incorrectly in a fanfic once.

Giles and Objects:

Here's Giles with the Pergamum Codex.

Xander and Bus Stations: I haven't said anything about Xander in this episode, and I can't really think of anything there is to say. If there was an example of him being ignored, I missed it, though that isn't to say he doesn't get as lonely as the others. There could be some insight hiding in his reactions to Cordelia, but I think for the most part, this just isn't Xander's moment.

And now it's time for the clipping of quotes from the shooting script which you may have come to expect from me. The good news is that from now on I'm going to make a conscious effort to not point out the spelling errors.

MITCH
Ew, libraries. All those books.
What's up with that?

With a few chuckles, the crowd disperses.

CORDELIA
(to Mitch as they leave)
Did I ever tell you about when
Buffy attacked me? With a spear
when I came out of the ladies' at
the Bronze. I still re-live the
trauma every time I see a pencil.
I can only use felt-tip now...

Just a bit of extra jerkishness that was left out, but I found it odd that Cordy thinks of a stake as both a spear and a pencil, and doesn't see any discrepancy there.

BUFFY
Giles, have you ever touched a
ghost?

GILES
No I haven't. I've seen one, in
Dartmoor. A murdered countess,
very beautiful. She used to float
along the foothills, moaning the
most piteous -- I've gone away
again, haven't I?

WILLOW
It's funny when he does that.

Giles history! Oh, I'd love to hear about him and his lovely ghost.

It's music. A flute. Ghostly. Playing somewhere in the bowels of the school. Buffy just listens, affected by it. It's about the saddest, loneliest song she's ever heard.

This and a few other lines from the shooting script made me feel like Marcie's plight wasn't fully emphasized in the episode as it aired. I think there was a wrong turn somewhere in the way Marcie went mad - there weren't any real signs of her descent, it was just lonely, lonely, homicidal.

GILES
...But the most
important books of Slayer prophecy
have been lost. The Tiberius
Manifesto, the Pergamum Codex.

ANGEL
The Codex.

GILES
It was reputed to contain the most
complete prophecies about the
Slayer's role in the End Times.
But the book was lost in the 15th
century.

ANGEL
Not lost. Misplaced. I can get
it.

Okay, I'm quoting this partially to hang onto the precious little info we get about Slayer prophecies and the Codex (Angel can just "get it"? What's the story there?), but because there's about a half second of character development in there that I really loved. When Angel finds that he can get something Giles needs, he gives us this little-boy smile, too quickly to screencap - after everything he's been through, it excites him just to be useful.

XANDER
But people perceived the whole
Marcie package as invisible,
clothes and all, not just, you
know...
(what's bothering him)
So you're saying she's not naked.

Yeah, that's always on my mind with invisible characters, too. Invisible Woman (of the Fantastic Four) can make things invisible by touching them; isn't that the most sensible solution?

CORDELIA
Well, just because the story's
about him doesn't mean he's
necessarily the hero, right?

Thanks, Cordy! That can be applied to at least half of everything written by Joss.

GILES
I mean apparently gift as a
researcher is limited to
supernatural rather than quantum
phenomena. All these state
functions, observables...
Mathematics was never my strength.

Is Giles telling the truth here? It seems to contradict what we've seen already in "The Puppet Show", but on the other hand, we never see him doing much math. That's Willow's thing. On the other other hand, it seems odd for Giles to have any intellectual weakness.

Strange Men in Black (AGENTS DOYLE and MANETTI and two others) arrive on opposite sides of the stage.

WAIT WAIT AGENT WHO???

Notes:

Yeah, I like the Codex more than most people, what of it?
This is what the stage directions tell us for her first actual physical appearance: A GIRL (MARCIE) -- so mousy she’s the human equivalent of wallpaper, but actually the actress is adorable and I like her voice. Anyone seen her in anything else?
The lolcat jokes work better for some invisible scenes than others. Just try to picture the captions on your screen while you watch the episode.

Links:

0 Comments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S1E10: "Nightmares"

2/8/2018

1 Comment

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
1.10: You Were So Gifted

Had to search for a screenshot again. We should be getting to the end of my early review attempts soon.

Along with "Angel" and "Prophecy Girl", I think "Nightmares" is one of the little gems of the first season, at the least showing what the show can (and will) be. Definitely the best S1 episode in which Angel doesn't make an appearance, no?

I'm sure there are larger themes at work with a plot like this, but I don't really concern myself with those. Lol no actually I'm just saying that my favorite part is just the dreams themselves. They're chosen well and portrayed well, and a couple of them did make me think.

They made Noel Murray of the A.V. Club think too, and I'm going to quote him on that because I didn't come up with this nifty analysis: "In one of the scenarios, The Master riffs on Disney by chirping 'a dream is a wish your heart makes,' and that line isn't just a joke. It's possible that Willow craves attention as much as she fears it, and that Xander really likes looking exposed and vulnerable in front of the whole school, and that Buffy would rather her parents and friends see her as a bad seed instead of a troubled savior." Oh man! That's totally true! And moreover, you can follow it into an early expression of Buffy's death wish - I don't put a whole lot of stock into that, but given the insurmountable impossibility of Buffy's mission and the way it was forced onto her, it's not a stretch to see that she might sometimes have an inkling that she'd be better off dead.

The Buffy Show: Probably not an inkling (at this point) that she'd be better off a vampire, but who knows? Also, I read a fic once that filled in some gaps by inserting Angel into the episode - just as Giles' fear of his Slayer's death segued into her own fear of being turned, it was Angel's nightmare that kicked off the sequence by being the one to sire her. Isn't that great? It's canon in my head.

Everyone Else: Every time the Scoobies have a nice casual chat with another high school kid, I kind of wish the kid would stick around and chat with them in some other episodes. I liked Wendell. Well, until the spider talk. Nobody should like him after that. But notice he also got the wish his heart made - he got his spiders back! I mean, he didn't really think they were punishing him for their deaths, did he? All they did was crawl playfully about him. Was he seeing accusation in their beady little eyes? That must have been it. Whoa, and spiders have four times as many eyes as humans; that's four hundred percent accusation.

Buffy's nightmare about her father, while well played, only really affected me in one way: it eventually comes true. I feel like the show could have fit in a little more drama about the deadbeat dad story, and I assume that it was the availability of the actor that prevented it, but mostly, thinking about Hank Summers just makes me angry at Hank Summers. I'm sure he didn't deliberately step out of his daughters' life because of Buffy's misbehavior, but his absence, barring some kind of crisis we never heard about, indicates something much worse: apathy. During the hardest times in their lives, Buffy and Dawn had to deal with knowing that their father just didn't care enough to come help them out when they needed him. If only Season 6 could have been revealed as a nightmare.

Speaking of fathers! That little slice of trauma incidentally provides a nice backdrop for Buffy's developing relationship with Giles. Before my rewatch I had more or less forgotten about his discovery of Buffy's grave and reaction to it:

GILES
I failed in my duty to protect you...
(beat)
I should have been more cautious,
taken more time with your training...
but you were so gifted and the evil
was so great.

It's suddenly become my favorite line of S1. (Okay, it's still in battle with "I wanted to kill you today", but never mind that.) There's so much going on here - not just Giles' paternal affection for his Slayer and his grief at losing her, but the fundamental conflict of his job. He needs to protect her but can't do it by keeping her away from the fight; the fight is inherently part of her. He can train her to protect herself, but he can't rush it even knowing that she needs to be trained already.

The worst part is that he has such good reasons for throwing her into mortal peril. One is that she's so gifted: to hold her back from her full potential would be to demean her. She wants to be saving the world now, and she's capable, and she knows it. How could he possibly tell her to take it easy?

And the evil is so great. The Slayer isn't a Slayer for the sake of the Slayer. She's here because the world needs her. Giles, in turn, is needed to wield her as a weapon, knowing how wrong that is, knowing he has to do it anyway for the lives at stake.

He'll spend the rest of the series struggling with the internal division, and the shame, of being Buffy's Watcher. This may be the only time we hear him put it into words. Yeah, this episode belongs to Giles.

I think that's mostly what I wanted to say, but here's a bit of fun from the shooting scripts:

He looks at her with a kind of remorse calm. The light seems to hand strangely on him, but he looks perfectly normal otherwise.

The phrase "remorse calm" is irritating me. Let's change it to "calm remorse" or "remorseful calm", okay? Also I could never quite tell if the light was landing strangely on him. Probably not.

BUFFY
Thanks. And Mom, don't worry, I'm over
the divorce. I officially release you from all guilt.

JOYCE
That's not what I was getting at-
you feel like putting that in writing?

Awwww.

XANDER
Probably be faster if we spilt up to look
for her.

GILES
Good idea.

Giles heads one way, Xander the other. Leaving Willow standing there alone. Beat.

WILLOW
Faster, but not really safer.

Sounds like Giles needs some time in the Cabin in the Woods.

Also, there's a scene where Xander can't remember the lesson yesterday; Buffy reminds him that the (hot) teacher was wearing a tight sweater, to which he responds, "The midnight blue Angora!" Later, the stage directions give us this: He looks from his naked self to the class (including Ms. Tishler in Angora if she works that day.)

She did.

Notes:

The kid playing Billy is such a cute little muffin. Or maybe I just always think that about TV kids who aren't playing deliberately cute roles. Anyway, do I recognize that actor?
First Billy of the series. We may want to start keeping a list.
Actually, I never really found the Anointed One cute, so scratch what I said in the first note.
Astral projection is mentioned for the first time. Isn't it kind of odd that Willow didn't master it until she was permanently off the screen? Seems like it would be a much cheaper effect than flying.
I always felt like they shot too low when they gave Giles a definite number for the languages he knows. I know, language isn't his specialty, but given the use of certain languages in spells, not to mention the Watcher's access to demon languages, it just seems like a big brain like his would have picked up more than five.
One thing I don't like about the resolution in this episode is the Little League coach as the villain. It just doesn't sound legit to me that an otherwise normal person would beat up a child for failing to perform in a game. If he's as psychotic as he'd have to be for this scenario, it would have shown up in other ways. It kind of sounds like they wanted an abusive parent to fill this role in the plot, but didn't have the guts to incorporate a real-world tragic issue like that yet.
Spotted another one of those conversations where one character/extra is talking and the other is conspicuously silent. It's just funny to me now; I can't help it.
Why were there chocolate bars in Xander's clown dream, anyway?
Oh yeah, and I do have a clown fear - I think most of us probably do to some degree - but that one didn't really do much for me. In fact, I can't recall anything particularly scary about this issue. Too bad!
Did Buffy have a soul as a nightmare vamp? PONDER.
Never noticed this - Xander knows what it's like to be attracted to a vampire. Hey hypocrite! Rant about Buffy's taste in men a little more, why don't you!

Links:

1 Comment

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S1E09: "The Puppet Show"

2/5/2018

1 Comment

Brother Luca's Global Mailings
1.09: No Strings Attached

I did an image search for this instead of screencapping the episode myself. Sorry but this is going to be a minimal-effort review.

I was hoping to establish a pattern here with writing a drabble or some cute little story - or at least having an old one on hand - for each episode. I haven't done that this time, because when I sat down and scrolled through the script with the episode playing in a miniature window beside it, I realized I had absolutely no inspiration to write. So I decided to skip that part, and then I realized I had absolutely nothing to say about the episode.

Noel Murray can explain it better than me: 'That said, here's the real problem with "Puppet Show:" It has nothing to offer beyond a few laughs and a few shocks. Even the relatively weak monster-of-the-week episodes from earlier in the season sported themes worth exploring. "Puppet Show" really doesn't--it's pretty straightforward.'

On the other hand, there are a lot of goodies in the shooting script - it's very different from the episode as it ran - so I'm just going to pick them out and reply to them instead of coming up with a review of my own. Good thing I never promised you anything!

They get up and see that PRINCIPAL MILLER is there. In years and schools past, he has ruled with unwavering confidence and was able, despite his size and appearance, to strike fear and respect into his students. But that was then and this is Sunnydale.

Hey, that's not Snyder! More importantly, that's not Snyder. Much like Owen from "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date", revisions have given him a real personality, and it's not what you see here. I love that. Who knows what the story of it was, but I like to think it had something to do with the casting, because Armin Whatshisname owned this role.

Cordelia stands on stage, holding a mic, passionately but quietly selling her song.

CORDELIA
‘Isn't it ironic, don't you think?
A little too ironic. Oh, yeah, I really do think.'

GILES
(cutting her off)
Okay, thank you.

CORDELIA
Wait, I'm about to
scream about the rain.

GET OUT. Okay, was anyone else old enough and geographically situated to remember when this song came out? It wasn't Alanis Morrisette's first hit, but for some reason it saturated the airwaves until it was playing in your head the moment you woke up every morning. Apparently, everyone loved it or something, which makes little sense because it was a terrible song that has become no less annoying with age. (I'm not anti-Alanis, either! She's actually a really great singer! I don't know what happened with this one!)

But I personally never met the people who apparently loved it, because whenever the song played or was mentioned in any way, the only thing anyone could ever talk about was how pissed they were that she was misusing the word "ironic". This was understandable, since she was, and she repeated it over, and over, and over again, which oodles of incorrect examples. Being pissed once or twice wasn't enough, though. You had to prove that you knew the correct definition of the word, and that meant a lot of complaining. It wasn't long before "none of those things are even ironic!" became the new "Ironic"...which is a little...wait for it...hey, does someone else want to say it? I don't think I can.

Years after the radio took mercy on us and decreased the frequency of Morrisette airtime, I reunited with my friends of those days to celebrate a wedding. As we prepared at the bride's house that morning, it was raining. "Some would call this ironic," I said, "but we know better." Nobody had to ask what I meant.

Whoever decided to replace that with "The Greatest Love of All" for Cordy was a total spoilsport.

MR MILLER
By the way, thanks for steering this
talent show ship. I owe you a debt of gratitude.

He flips Giles a quarter.

MR MILLER
Debt paid.
(laughing)
I love that gag.
(then)
But seriously, thanks.

They're both jerks - I think the big difference between Miller and Snyder is a sense of humor.

BUFFY
Who found the body?

GILES
The custodian. She was cleaning the locker room--

BUFFY
They clean this place?

Hehe.

XANDER
How jaded has our school become when
you don't even get the day off after a brutal
murder? I bet most other places, that's an
automatic. But no! We forge on.

I'd like to see someone figure out how many days off that would have been for the three years we watched Sunnydale High. Oh, wait. Did "The Wish" do that?

GILES
Unfortunately, Morgan may have gone
one step further into the harvesting of
human organs under the misguided belief
that this will bring his puppet to life.
The Geppeto Complex, if you will.

XANDER
Do you actually know this stuff,
or do you make it up as you go along?

GILES
It is fun, isn't it?

Every time I think I can't love Giles any more...

A stream of water DRIBBLES onto her arm. She looks up and realizes her weapon is a mop and her victim is a JANITOR.

BUFFY
You're not following me.
You're mopping. And I'm sorry.

He is speechless (and paid as such). Buffy helps him up and cowers away.

I gather that a single line of dialogue will boost an actor's paycheck to an entirely different field of budget. It's interesting to notice the moments when you expect someone to speak and they don't - also to see the reasoning for it stated so openly by the writers. A lot of these scripts have a streak of mischief in the stage directions, occasionally even a little bit of spite. Behold:

EXT. SUNNYDALE HIGH - THE NEXT MORNING

Another day begins at our favorite school.

SHERYL CROW walks by. Buffy kills her.

I'm not kidding. That's what it says.

Of course this is before we had Edward for Buffy to kill in our daydreams...

BUFFY
Hey, Mr. Producer. How goes the talent biz?

GILES
You know, a few days ago,
I would have rather bathed
with a Gila monster than taken
on this task.

BUFFY
Then you should speak up next time.

GILES
But it's become refreshing.
You and I deal with so much
darkness and death. The stage
is an escape. It's like another world.

This looks like a theme that was more or less cut out of the final draft, but I like the idea of Giles gradually warming to his task, and already seeking an escape from the violence of his real job.

Oh, another pop culture tidbit: one of the talent show extras is designated as CARROT-TOP WANNABE. Remember Carrot Top? No? Thank your lucky stars.

GILES
Cordelia, there's no ‘I' in ‘talent show.'

CORDELIA
There's a big one in ‘Cordelia.'

:)

XANDER
Things did seem pretty written on Morgan's shirt.

BUFFY
Or maybe suspecting him
was just the easiest thing to do.

WILLOW
Buffy, we all thought he was psycho.
Everyone in the talent show told us a
different story about how weird he was.

XANDER
Yeah. You see a kid, you see a dummy,
you see the dummy whisper in the kid's
ear, you think crazy kid

BUFFY
Maybe so, but... you know how
people look at the three of us?

WILLOW
Oh, yeah.

BUFFY
That look that says they're seeing
someone who's different, not like
them, and it scares them? I could
live forever without seeing that
again. But I think it's the exact same
look we used to give Morgan. We never
even gave him a chance.

Another abandoned theme. Granted, this doesn't blend into the characterization of the Scoobies that easily. When Buffy feels like an outcast, it's usually fairly subtle, and there isn't a lot of "us" about the three of them yet - they're just three individuals who happen to hang out a lot.

But it's all too real for one misfit to treat another misfit like a misfit. People get comfortable in one aspect of life and lose their ability to see other people struggling with the same aspect. Especially at this age.

GILES
I never thought I'd say these
words, but Xander may be right.

XANDER
I'll expect a formal letter
of apology in the morning.

GILES
The dummy has a mind of its own.

XANDER
Hey!

BUFFY
He means Sid.

XANDER
He means Sid.

If this had stayed in the dialogue, I would make a Xander icon that said "The dummy has a mind of its own."

BUFFY
Yeah, well, I kind of played the
stereotype against you, too.

SID
You thought I was an evil puppet.

BUFFY
No, I thought you were a lifeless piece of wood.

See, the jokes are pretty good. It's a decent piece of writing. It's just got no heart, if you know what I mean.

Xander and Willow are there looking for some props. Willow sees something on a shelf and reaches for it.

WILLOW
Hey, that scarf would be perfect.

The lights go out and the door SLAMS shut. It's PITCH BLACK.

WILLOW
Okay. Ha-ha, Xander. You got me. Turn on the light.

No response.

WILLOW
You know, jokes like this aren't very
funny, what with this school being on
a Hellmouth and all.

Again nothing.

WILLOW
Xander?

Suddenly, A FACE APPEARS an inch from Willow's, illuminated from below by a beam of light. She SCREAMS--

WILLOW
Ahhh!

--then sees it's Xander, holding a flashlight to his face.

XANDER
Actually, being on a Hellmouth and
all makes this kind of thing even funnier.

This totally would have gotten me.

GILES
I must say to all of you, your timing
is impeccable. Xander, I could kiss you.

XANDER
Unnecessary. And kind of icky.

Icky?

A couple other differences - the Scoobies performed "A Streetcar Named Desire" instead of "Oedipus Rex" (and without the awesome timing), and Buffy kept the Sid dummy.

BUFFY
I don't know. It's just, after everything
we've been through, I thought I'd hang
on to him for a while. As sort of a reminder.

XANDER
Of what?

Buffy puts Sid in her locker.

BUFFY
That I'm not the only one.

Dummies freak me out too. Buffy may have shed her bias through this experience; mine remains, and I am sincerely glad that Sid in Buffy's locker is not canon.

Random notes:

Snyder vs. Giles is fascinating. For the other main characters he's just an antagonist, but with Giles it's Adult vs. Adult, possibly the first time we've seen that dichotomy in this show.
Sid is another MotW who has a lot in common with Ultron. No strings!
As I explained up top, I didn't write a drabble or anything for this one. In fact, I wrote this review a few years ago and still don't have anything to add to it. What a crap episode, huh.
Come to think of it, I'm probably missing a couple of good Giles and Objects moments, but I just can't do it.

Links:

1 Comment