More on the Buffy season 3 rewatch
Oct. 18th, 2014 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessDisc 4 and half of disc 5 aka Helpless, The Zeppo, Bad Girls, Consequences, Doppelgangland, Enemies Solidly good episodes all, with Consequences, for me, being the stand-out.
Watching these episodes, I was regularly coveting Buffy’s coats, despite not being an eighteen year old tiny blonde Californian.
Helpless was rather upsetting. It’s the one where Buffy turns eighteen and the Council decides to secretly test her and see if she can survive without her strength and co-ordination, making her ‘just a girl’ – and she’s a sad one at that, because her birth father has let her down, being unable to keep up what seems like a childish birthday tradition. And of course, she then learns that her usual father figure Giles has betrayed her (the fact that he was really angsty about it doesn’t cut much ice either.) The villain of the week s a creepy one – a psychopath among vampires with Mommy issues (enter Joyce to be put in danger), making this another episode that examines parent-child relationships.
Question: did the Council try to pull this on Faith or was she Called after the age of 18?
The Zeppo
Even though I’ve found Xander quite obnoxious for most of his season, this episode, focused on him was funny. The least important part of the Scoobs, facing the school bully and his shiny knife, Xander’s attempts to have a thing/be cool are doomed. What follows is a busy night, frat boy zombies, the famous Faith deflowering and being on the periphery as the others fight the end of the world/paper mache limbs. Really fine comic sensibility, like werewolf!Oz taking out the bad guy and the show poking fun at its own stock in trade. It’s also striking that Xander would be the Chosen One, the quippy nerd who would become the hero in so many shows/films/whatever. But not BtVS, and that’s why it’s never hyperbole to say that this show was special and important.
Side note: ‘Jelly?’ Giles has been in the States two long. Doughnuts have jam in them.
Bad Girls
I feel that they could have sowed the seeds of Faith’s enjoyment of slaying influencing Buffy more in earlier episodes. On the other hand, the fall-out of Xander/Faith is handled beautifully.
Anyway, Faith gets Buffy to start acting like a delinquent, because they’re slayers, right? Except they aren’t above right and wrong, and Faith’s lack of control gets a human killed. Dushku is settled into her role now and handles the big moments well. I wonder if Willow’s protection spell was one of the things that helped Buffy step back from the line Faith was about to cross.
Meanwhile, enter Wesley, amusingly full of himself, but out of his depth, here to set Giles off well.
Consequences
The opening dream sequence is brilliant. The relationship between Buffy and Faith in the aftermath of what Faith did is nicely complex and SMG and Dushku are great. And after some classic skulking, Angel is the one to start to try to help Faith, until Wesley makes a shocking (not!) miscalculation. With Wesley and Cordy’s first encounter taking place and knowing what would happen between the last four characters I mentioned in the spin-off, I had to smile.
I wonder if Giles wasn’t so much Buffy’s watcher/father, they’d have considered him helping Faith at this point.
Doppelgangland
I thought that this was more successful than Amends, also written and directed by Whedon, perhaps because there’s more comedy. The motivation was obviously resurrecting Wishverse!Willow and concentrating on our Willow, who is mildly dissatisfied with her life. Contrast that with a very disgruntled Anya, now a teenager with no power. Anya’s attempt to get her power source brings Vamp!Willow into this universe to mope about the state of Sunnydale plus Slayer.
There’s a lot of affection for Willow (perhaps more than I can muster up, because I overidentified with her, and, eventually felt betrayed, tbh, so by now I’m with Cordy).
Still, nearly everything is snappier than usual in this episode; there’s a moment for everyone and foreshadowings of what will happen to Willow.
I tend to think that they should have killed Wishverse!Willow her, because whatever verse she was in, she was a vampire. Oh well, multiverse justice won out.
But then I also tend to think Giles and Anya should have got together for real on the show.
Enemies
While I didn’t think the ep is as quite as good as it thinks it is, but until the twist is revealed, partly because the secret is so tightly kept, Boreanaz’s Angel’s Angelus convinced me along with Faith. Plus Buffy looked so sad.
Should have known, though, as Faith tried to use her genuine feelings about killing to entrap Angel for the Mayor. As Wesley flapped about, Giles, although witty, seemed oddly distant from his girl (I was so relieved he was in on the plan – Buffy’s relationship with Giles is contrasted with the other daughter-father dynamic of Faith and the Mayor). There were sticky moments, but the acting is great, and let’s praise Groener for the Mayor at this point. The scene where Buffy stands up to Faith is also a stand-out.
It’s an ep that you hope is only dabbling with going dark, but it pretty much faces the fact that Buffy and Angel can’t make it work. As I want the dorky, swashbuckling, more multifaceted Angel of the spin-off, I’m fine with that (sad about where the original show would go though, because no season was as consistently good as this for me, although obviously there were excellent episodes to come – amusingly, Giles has a snarky line about not singing in this one.
Watching these episodes, I was regularly coveting Buffy’s coats, despite not being an eighteen year old tiny blonde Californian.
Helpless was rather upsetting. It’s the one where Buffy turns eighteen and the Council decides to secretly test her and see if she can survive without her strength and co-ordination, making her ‘just a girl’ – and she’s a sad one at that, because her birth father has let her down, being unable to keep up what seems like a childish birthday tradition. And of course, she then learns that her usual father figure Giles has betrayed her (the fact that he was really angsty about it doesn’t cut much ice either.) The villain of the week s a creepy one – a psychopath among vampires with Mommy issues (enter Joyce to be put in danger), making this another episode that examines parent-child relationships.
Question: did the Council try to pull this on Faith or was she Called after the age of 18?
The Zeppo
Even though I’ve found Xander quite obnoxious for most of his season, this episode, focused on him was funny. The least important part of the Scoobs, facing the school bully and his shiny knife, Xander’s attempts to have a thing/be cool are doomed. What follows is a busy night, frat boy zombies, the famous Faith deflowering and being on the periphery as the others fight the end of the world/paper mache limbs. Really fine comic sensibility, like werewolf!Oz taking out the bad guy and the show poking fun at its own stock in trade. It’s also striking that Xander would be the Chosen One, the quippy nerd who would become the hero in so many shows/films/whatever. But not BtVS, and that’s why it’s never hyperbole to say that this show was special and important.
Side note: ‘Jelly?’ Giles has been in the States two long. Doughnuts have jam in them.
Bad Girls
I feel that they could have sowed the seeds of Faith’s enjoyment of slaying influencing Buffy more in earlier episodes. On the other hand, the fall-out of Xander/Faith is handled beautifully.
Anyway, Faith gets Buffy to start acting like a delinquent, because they’re slayers, right? Except they aren’t above right and wrong, and Faith’s lack of control gets a human killed. Dushku is settled into her role now and handles the big moments well. I wonder if Willow’s protection spell was one of the things that helped Buffy step back from the line Faith was about to cross.
Meanwhile, enter Wesley, amusingly full of himself, but out of his depth, here to set Giles off well.
Consequences
The opening dream sequence is brilliant. The relationship between Buffy and Faith in the aftermath of what Faith did is nicely complex and SMG and Dushku are great. And after some classic skulking, Angel is the one to start to try to help Faith, until Wesley makes a shocking (not!) miscalculation. With Wesley and Cordy’s first encounter taking place and knowing what would happen between the last four characters I mentioned in the spin-off, I had to smile.
I wonder if Giles wasn’t so much Buffy’s watcher/father, they’d have considered him helping Faith at this point.
Doppelgangland
I thought that this was more successful than Amends, also written and directed by Whedon, perhaps because there’s more comedy. The motivation was obviously resurrecting Wishverse!Willow and concentrating on our Willow, who is mildly dissatisfied with her life. Contrast that with a very disgruntled Anya, now a teenager with no power. Anya’s attempt to get her power source brings Vamp!Willow into this universe to mope about the state of Sunnydale plus Slayer.
There’s a lot of affection for Willow (perhaps more than I can muster up, because I overidentified with her, and, eventually felt betrayed, tbh, so by now I’m with Cordy).
Still, nearly everything is snappier than usual in this episode; there’s a moment for everyone and foreshadowings of what will happen to Willow.
I tend to think that they should have killed Wishverse!Willow her, because whatever verse she was in, she was a vampire. Oh well, multiverse justice won out.
But then I also tend to think Giles and Anya should have got together for real on the show.
Enemies
While I didn’t think the ep is as quite as good as it thinks it is, but until the twist is revealed, partly because the secret is so tightly kept, Boreanaz’s Angel’s Angelus convinced me along with Faith. Plus Buffy looked so sad.
Should have known, though, as Faith tried to use her genuine feelings about killing to entrap Angel for the Mayor. As Wesley flapped about, Giles, although witty, seemed oddly distant from his girl (I was so relieved he was in on the plan – Buffy’s relationship with Giles is contrasted with the other daughter-father dynamic of Faith and the Mayor). There were sticky moments, but the acting is great, and let’s praise Groener for the Mayor at this point. The scene where Buffy stands up to Faith is also a stand-out.
It’s an ep that you hope is only dabbling with going dark, but it pretty much faces the fact that Buffy and Angel can’t make it work. As I want the dorky, swashbuckling, more multifaceted Angel of the spin-off, I’m fine with that (sad about where the original show would go though, because no season was as consistently good as this for me, although obviously there were excellent episodes to come – amusingly, Giles has a snarky line about not singing in this one.
