shallowness

I bought season 3 on DVD because it contains the only episode of BtVS that I never watched live, ‘Earshot’. I hadn’t watched the show since it aired, and I’d forgotten so much – the distinctive dialogue as delivered, the feelings that these characters drew out of me, expecially hero Buffy. It has to be said that this was season 3, before season 4 (the show graduates from high school and decides to mix genres) and then, for understandable reasons Buffy got more and more depressed and I got frustrated, and my allegiances shifter from the original Scoobies to those who had joined the fight after (Anya, Tara, Spike, Dawn...) Rewatching season 3, I realise that the later seasons had a huge influence on how I’d been regarding the show once it was done, not to mention the influence of AtS which begged comparisons.

But watching these episodes at this point in time when I’m no longer a few years older than the Sunnydale seniors, I see Giles (GILES!) and Joyce’s point of view a little more and with a little distance from all my show-related baggage, I’ve been reliving how much I cared. For Buffy is hurting after doing the heroic thing at the end of season 2, saving the world, by killing her first love, Angel, just as he’s come back to her, while everyone else thinks he was still Angelus. I’d forgotten how EPIC Buffy/Angel was before we knew what would come next. And for me, it overshadowed all her later canonical romances.

Now, it occurs to me that, apart from being glad Angel got his own spin-off, they sort of had to send him away eventually, as he was a Bad Boyfriend pushed to metaphoric extremes (examined in Beauty and the Beasts).

The season starts in LA (did they know then that they were going to set Angel there by this point?) with Buffy having taken her mother at her word and left town, running, trying to hide. But then that moment where she steps up and becomes the hero who fights back – a shot that would be in the opening titles forever more, out of context - reminded me of how much she meant. Buffy was iconic and important, and it’s sad that it’s still almost, well, refreshing, despite all the ‘new Buffys’ and shows with ‘kickass women’ to see a girl with that status. The fact that she is a teenage girl and how that affects all the important relationships in her life is crucial when you think of some other shows that have followed and the protagonist is female, but somehow and exception in her world. I’m not expressing what I mean, quite, and I think it’s probably the subject of a meatier post (where I’d probably find a few counter-examples; I’m going by feeling here.) To talk about what I saw in these episodes, Buffy standing up and fighting in ‘Anne’ is also Buffy deciding to connect again. Buffy and Willow’s friendship is hugely important. The way that her friendship with Willow and Xander counterbalances the pull of romantic relationships they all have is important (and the complications therein are explored). The fact that she’s the daughter of a single mother and that they aren’t all in all to each other, but that it’s a powerful and fraught relationship is explored. She and Willow telling the girl who will die at her beloved (abusive) boyfriends hands has so many layers. Then there’s Faith, who replaced Kendra, the peer/dark mirror in this extraordinary calling of hers. It’s not often you get all depth and variety is my contention.

At the same time as letting the viewer into Buffy’s heart and dreams, the show makes us have a lot of sympathy for those that she left behind, (well, I did think Xander was the most annoying about it.) Her friends, her actual mother and her figurative father are nursing broken hearts and what Buffy did was selfish. So I love that the start of the third season is about Buffy slowly rebuilding her relationships with the people who matter the most to her, and it’s not easy. When all the hurt bursts out in ‘Dead Man’s Party’ (before the zombies attack) it’s heartbreaking, because you feel for both sides.

I’m also enjoying the accidental foreshadowing – or rather, I tend to think of it as finding things that the writers would later refer back to. In ‘Anne’, we have Cordelia (oh Cordy, overall, you deserved better!) talk about wishes. In the same episode, we see how desperately Willow wants Buffy back in Sunnydale, laying the foundations for her actions at the start of season 6. It plays more sweetly and innocently here than it will. Xander is worried about losing an eye and Willow describes teasing Buffy for running away as ‘a drug’ in Dead Man’s Party. Faith is introduced like the sister Buffy doesn’t really think she wants (especially as things are delicate with her loved ones, who welcome exciting Faith, trampling all over Buffy’s sore spots). There’s also a reference to 100 slayers in ‘Faith, Hope and Trick’.

Also THE CLOTHES are a whole other layer of nostalgia.

It’s a shame that Gellar, who is so good, has never really got another role that has come close in catching people’s imagination and hearts. I mean, it was always going to be hard to replicate Buffy but she’s so funny, so fierce and heartbreaking here.