Buffy Rewatch Week 34

5.16 The Body

Follow along in Bite Me!, pp. 266-268.

And on Angel, this week’s episode is:

2.16 Epiphany

Where do I begin?

When I first saw this episode, I was 27 years old. I had both parents, I even had all my grandparents. I’d had some losses, but they hadn’t been earth-shattering to my life. I was rather lucky. I watched this episode in a sort of coma, unable to move or think or react throughout the hour (which, sadly, was broken up by commercial breaks… thank god now for DVD players). At the end of the hour, I looked at my husband, he looked at me, and he said, “Rewind. Let’s watch it again.” The second time through was a very different experience, where now the reality was sinking in.

Joyce was dead.

Those little visual tricks of Joss’s (Joyce taking a gasping breath, telling Buffy how glad she was that she made it on time, etc.) were nothing more than tricks now. Joyce was dead, and she wasn’t coming back. THIS time I had the visceral reaction, this time I was crying along with everyone else.

This second time – and every time since – that fruit punch speech has devastated me. I defy anyone to watch that one with a dry eye.

Now, during the rewatch, I have no grandparents left, I’ve seen friends lose their parents, I’ve watched friends get sick, some dying far, far too young, I’ve known the fear of being in a sudden dangerous situation and thinking, “oh my god, what will happen to my children?!” and so I watched this episode in an entirely different way all over again.

“The Body” is a play in four acts. There is absolutely no non-diegetic music whatsoever; instead Joss Whedon presents death, warts and all. With all of the horrible sounds – and silence – that are left when a person dies.

It really does feel like a play, too, with a single set in each act, covering off each aspect of death. In my book I analyze how the episode represents the various stages of grief, and I won’t run through that again here, but instead I’ll look at the episode itself.

The teaser is a repeat of the ending of the previous episode, with Buffy walking in and saying in her tiny little child-like voice, “Mommy?”

Act One takes place in the house, with all awful noises and moments and feelings and shock that take place. Gellar turns in a stunning performance as her confusion, shock, and horror all pass over her face without Buffy saying much of anything. There’s the moment where she first rushes over and shakes and shakes and SHAKES Joyce for a terribly long time, while we at home already feel our hearts breaking, knowing Joyce isn’t waking up no matter how much she shakes her. We watch her futilely attempting CPR, and we reel back with the horror of her cracking Joyce’s rib with her Slayer strength. Whedon employs several little tricks, where we think for a moment that Joyce may actually be alive when she gasps and begins talking, or when we see the paramedic’s mouth only, as if Buffy is too stunned to hear what he’s saying, just staring at his mouth without taking in the words. She throws the door open at one point and stares into the backyard, hearing the birds and children and a sun that dares to keep shining as if the world doesn’t understand that HER MOTHER IS DEAD for god’s sakes. It’s a moment anyone can relate to, either after suffering the death of a loved one or some catastrophic incident that has changed our lives. HOW could this world continue to go on as if nothing has just happened?? I love when Giles comes in like it’s any other episode, looking for Glory and rushing to Joyce’s side, but when he realizes this is not supernatural, and that Buffy just lost her mommy, he runs to shield Buffy from seeing everything… but he’s far too late.

Act Two is at Dawn’s school, with Dawn complaining that her life is horrible and NOTHING COULD BE WORSE THAN BEING CALLED A FREAK and she goes to art class and must paint the negative space around a body. It’s a brilliant metaphor, considering the space of negativity that surrounds Joyce’s dead body at this point and everyone’s inability to deal with it. Buffy comes in, tells Dawn, and Dawn falls apart, realizing there are worse things than being called a freak.

Act Three is at Willow’s dorm room, where Willow can’t find the right thing to wear, Tara remains a little detached from the others (knowing what Buffy is going through but not wanting to impose on a very close-knit situation of friends), Anya asks innocent questions as a four-year-old would. But where we could indulge the four-year-old and use the distraction to almost make ourselves feel better about things, coming from Anya these questions seem entirely inappropriate. Until she does the fruit punch speech. “Fruit punch mouth” made me laugh my head off at the end of season 1. Now fruit punch makes me cry. Every. Damn. Time. And then Xander puts his fist through a wall. He represents anger, Willow the heightened sensitivity of not wanting to make the situation worse, Tara represents calm, and Anya utter confusion and misunderstanding.

Act Four takes place at the morgue, and we watch the everyday chit-chat of friends trying to talk around what’s really happening and not knowing what to say without sounding trite, Buffy cold to the world around her, Dawn angry, Tara finally admitting what happened to her, the others overcompensating for being clumsy and unsure around their best friend. And then Dawn heads to the room where her mother’s body lay. I said this in my book, but I remember when I first saw the episode I was a little put out that the vampire thing was thrown in there and thought it fell flat, but immediately on that second viewing I realized no, it was absolutely necessary. Life goes on, she’ll still be the Slayer, the world of the undead won’t stop to give Buffy mourning time. All Dawn wants is to touch her, to feel the cold skin, to know without a doubt that her mother really is dead. And she will touch her and make that discovery, and no doubt melt into her sisters arms in a wave of sobs… but that moment is private, not for our eyes, and Joss cuts away just as the hand is about to touch Joyce’s face.

It’s an extraordinary piece of filmmaking in so many ways, and over the years has become immensely influential. The camera angles, the writing, the stark way the entire piece was presented has been used in The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and any other highly stylized television show. In case you were a little confused by that opening scene with the gang all together having Christmas dinner, it was put there because Joss didn’t want the opening producer/acting/writing credits to be placed over the scene of Buffy reacting to her mother’s body, so he added this little set piece and the credits fly rather quickly over it.

Notice also that the latter three acts all begin with images of “the body.” It’s no longer Joyce – she should be in the living room with her arms around Buffy, reassuring her that everything’s OK. She should be at Dawn’s school breaking bad news to her, not Buffy. She should be with Buffy’s friends and talking them through these tough life moments and telling Willow the colour of her shirt doesn’t matter. She should be sitting by Buffy on the couch in the morgue with her arm around her, squeezing her tightly.

But she can’t. She’s gone. Joyce is gone and all that’s left is a body that’s being zipped into a body bag, that’s having a piece of lingerie cut off it, that’s being autopsied. These tiny little moments where we see Joyce – eyes constantly open, a conscious decision Joss made when filming – are what raise this episode even further.

It’s probably been 7 or 8 years since I last watched this episode, and this is the first time I cried from beginning to end. I don’t think I stopped once – not even when Dawnie was being a bit of a turd. I choked out a little laugh when Willow threatened fisticuffs, but the tears didn’t stop flowing.

Still one of my favourite hours of television, if not my absolute favourite.

This Rewatch has featured some incredible minds in the world of pop culture studies, and my guest hosts have done an amazing job of analyzing the episodes and pulling out themes and ideas each week. But “The Body” is something that not only demands critical analysis (and I’ve got my favourite husband-and-wife academic team coming up shortly to do that for us) but it’s one of those episodes we feel. Each week I try to infuse the emotional side of the commentary into the write-ups, talking about my personal reaction to the episodes. But for “The Body,” I couldn’t do that from experience.

While, as mentioned, I’ve been lucky that I still have all my parents (knock on wood), some of my friends haven’t been so fortunate. My best friend Sue – who I talk about all the time on here, who is my sci-fi convention sidekick and the pal who accompanies me to every Slayage – lost her father to cancer 13 years ago, shortly after the two of us were out of university. Her dad was the coolest – he was from England, had shared pints with Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck, had rubbed shoulders with the Kray twins, and had so many stories I could listen to him talk all day. I’ll never forget the time that Sue and I were in her basement watching U2’s Rattle & Hum, and when Bono gives this REALLY long preachy speech (the one that ends, “Am I buggin’ ya? Don’t mean to bug ya…”) her dad was standing in one corner of the room doing something and he started shouting back at the television like he was a member of a Baptist congregation. “You tell ‘em! You got it, brother!” Sue and I were in stitches. It’s my favourite memory of him. He was awesome.

And then he got sick.

Sue and I had been best friends throughout high school and university, but drifted apart afterwards as our lives diverged and went in different directions. I found out through the grapevine that her dad had passed away, and I didn’t even know he’d been sick; I felt awful, to say the least. It was through this tragedy that we reconnected and are closer today than we’ve ever been before.

She’s been following the Rewatch from the beginning (and has the joy of rewatching the episodes with a first-time viewer!). I delicately asked her a few weeks ago if she might share with us what it’s like to watch this episode, having been through a similar loss, and she graciously accepted the challenge. So I’m pleased and proud to present Suzanne Kingshott this week, my best friend, my kindred spirit, and the one to bring the heart to the Rewatch (for the record, you made me cry, Suzie)…



Joss Whedon’s ‘The Body’ is the most honest episode of television I have ever watched. I can’t believe how he was able to write such a powerful episode and address everything that one feels upon the death of someone close to them. The emotions, the dialogue, the soundtrack and even the camera shots and editing of the episode as a whole, all strive to convey the fickleness of life, the ultimate finality of death and the very complex and emotional healing process one goes through after losing a loved one.

The opening scene with Buffy finding her mom is so heartbreaking, but even more heartbreaking still is seeing the look on her face when the fact that her mother really is dead is sinking in. I feel like that whole opening scene is like being in slow motion and I think that that adds to the feeling of how surreal this event in her life is. I remember feeling that way when my dad had passed. I actually was with him during his last moments. Time seemed to go on forever for the rest of the day. Nothing seemed real. You get this weird feeling of detachment from the rest of the world – it’s like you’re in a bubble or haze all by yourself. I kept thinking that he was going to turn up at home and call my name or say something funny and all would be right with the world. I couldn’t comprehend that he was really gone. The whole idea that I would never speak to him again about the book he was reading or drive to the store with him again or watch EastEnders with him or sit at the table in the morning and have a cup of tea with him (which is all so reminiscent of Anya’s fruit punch speech) was kind of absurd because he’d been in palliative care for quite a few weeks, so I really hadn’t done any of those normal everyday things with him for a while. Buffy’s thought of the alternative outcome where she reaches her mother and the paramedics get her breathing again and everything turns out fine is so real to me. I remember that I kept thinking that my father’s death was all a dream and that I’d wake up and everything would be okay and life would go on as usual.

Buffy’s realization about the difference between her mother and her mother’s body was also interesting. I remember after my dad passed, the nurses came in and said that we could spend as much time as we liked with him (with the underlying understand that eventually they would have to deal with his body) and I have a difficult time remembering how long I sat with him. I had to go through that process of distinguishing my father as I knew him in my heart and mind from the body left behind – to realize that my dad as I knew him was no longer there. I went about making a call to tell a close friend about my dad’s passing and I remember looking at this clock in the hospital ceiling with its red lights reading 8:11 – I don’t know why I remember the time but I remember staring at this every day object like it was something foreign to me just like Buffy does with the phone keypad. I’m sure that I also made little sense to the person on the other end of the phone even though I remember trying to keep a false sense of calm as Buffy does.

I found it really interesting in the episode that Buffy’s mind reverts quite quickly to her happy memory of a Christmas past with her mother because it took me quite a while to be able to look back on nice memories without breaking down in tears. Eventually there came a point in my grief where I felt comforted in remembering the good times I had with my dad and all the wonderful memories of him in my life. Once I was able to stop dwelling on the period of time when he was ill and passed away, I was able to reminisce with less pain.

But there lies a little difference between my situation and Buffy’s – her mother’s death was sudden, my dad’s was not. Which brings me to the scene with Buffy and Tara in the hospital when Tara tells Buffy about her mother’s death. Buffy asks Tara if her mother’s death was sudden and Tara says “no and yes, it’s always sudden”. After watching my father go through a prolonged illness and die, I thought to myself – “well you knew it was coming, why are you so surprised?” – and then it dawned on me that it doesn’t matter what you think is coming or even what you’re told is coming and should know is coming, you are not any more prepared for the final outcome – you cannot conceive that the person who has been there through your whole life will suddenly be gone one day. After my dad’s death, I had many minutes and hours of guilty feelings thinking that I could have done more, said more, been there more…after a while, I had to realize that it was what it was – I had never dealt with this before (as Buffy also remarks to Tara). The scene that Buffy has with Tara is my favourite in the episode because their conversation is so honest. Death is discussed openly and they admit that there are no easy answers when dealing with the death of a loved one. Tara says that you have thoughts and reactions that you can’t understand and that death is always different – no two people who have experienced the death of someone close to them handle it in the same way. She is able to give Buffy more comfort and insight than anyone else because she understands how lost one feels after losing someone you love. However, don’t get me wrong, all the other things that your friends do to try and help comfort you are just as valid – the most important thing is having those who care about you around and there when you need them most – even if you don’t speak to each other.

I can’t imagine how my friends felt about the situation me and my family were going through. I’m sure that it’s difficult for everyone in trying to figure out how to interact with and comfort someone who’s just suffered a great loss. Sadly I’ve been to several funerals since my father’s and I feel a fool at times because I find myself saying the same trite, conventional comments that everyone says quoting variations of “it’s for the best” (if they were suffering from an illness) and “time heals all wounds” and how sorry I am and how sad it all is. I barely even remember my father’s funeral. It was all a blur. I couldn’t tell you who was there outside of a handful of people but I felt comforted and supported because of the people that were there. I was able to feel the love and good wishes surrounding me and my family during that horrible time. The scene with Xander and Anya going up to get Tara and Willow to go to the hospital underlines that idea. Nothing seems appropriate and there’s a general awkwardness to everything. You know as friends it is your duty to be there and support the person who has suffered the loss more greatly than you even if in the moment you feel useless or you overcompensate - you have to find the strength to hold in your own grief in order to help your friend overcome theirs.

In my experience, I find that the hardest period of time in dealing with a recent death of a loved one is not necessarily the event itself or the funeral or the days between the two (because ultimately you are numb and basically a walking zombie), but the days and weeks and months after the funeral. This is the time when you need people around the most because this is when you need to accept what has happened, make peace with it and move on. You need to get back into reality and the regular routine of life and living. And that’s what is really hard to get over – life going on without someone who was such a big part of your life. I remember going back to my job after my father’s death. I was a part-time cashier in a grocery store. It was very difficult to get back into every day routines. I remember one day in particular, it was my first week back and I greeted a customer as usual “good morning how are you?” and then had to listen to them complain about the weather and the price of milk and the whole time I’m screaming in my head “at least your father hasn’t just died of cancer”. Everything else in life, all the little annoyances and petty gripes we all have each and every day just seemed so incredibly insignificant to me. You also look back on things that used to make you angry or upset you and realize how trivial those things were in comparison to this awful life-changing event you’ve just gone through (such as Dawn being upset about kids spreading rumours about her at school – in her mind at that point in time prior to finding out about her mother’s death that was the most awful thing that had happened to her). It is so hard after the funeral to watch everyone around you go back to their daily lives and move on and essentially seem to forget about you and your pain – but life must go on. And that’s where the advice of “take things one day at a time” kicks in – it’s the only way you can survive for quite a while after the death of a loved one. It’s so hard to believe at the time, but one day I found myself suddenly getting through a whole day without crying, without thinking “why me?”, without getting angry. Eventually you reach a day where you realize you didn’t even think of that horrible period in your life for one moment and you feel the guilt swell up in your heart and soul but you realize that that doesn’t mean you don’t miss them, it just means you’re coping with the loss. In your heart I knew that this is what my dad would want – all parents want their kids to be happy and to never be in any pain. It’s at this stage in your grief when you are ready for the wonderful memories to flood back and you feel able to reminisce with family and friends all your “remember whens” and “as my dad would have saids” – and that is a tribute to the loved one you’ve lost all in itself.

Another coping mechanism that is so evident in this episode is Buffy’s need to be strong and go on in order to care and protect her younger sister. I found that I did much the same thing by focusing my energies on my younger brother and sister and making sure that they were all right and trying to make things “normal” again for them. In this way, I was able to delay my own grief for a short while, however, your personal grief does eventually catch up with you – you can’t avoid it – you have to deal with it in one way or another. You need to find your own sense of closure, your own peace of mind and it’s your family and friends who are the key to your survival, just as they are for Buffy.

Watching this episode again, for the first time since it originally aired, I feel comforted in a strange sort of way. Yes, there are very sad and upsetting moments and times when I cried, but as someone who has gone through losing a person very dear to their heart, there is a comfort in seeing the stages of grief laid out in such a frank and honest way. I can totally relate to everything each one of the characters goes through. There are no fake or contrived moments in this episode and there is no need to overdramatize the events or the actions of the characters. There is comfort in knowing that everything I went through after my dad’s death was normal, that all my feelings and actions and thoughts were valid and that I am not alone in dealing with my grief in these ways. In the end, I didn’t handle the situation any better or any worse than anyone else. I remember bracing myself emotionally the first time I watched the episode when it aired. I knew what was coming and I purposely kept myself emotionally detached when I watched the episode. I was unable to think or talk about the episode for fear of breaking down emotionally since it had only been a few years after my dad’s death. At the end of the day the loss of a loved one, especially a parent when you are at such a young age, is very devastating and changes the course of your life forever. It’s being able to find the strength to deal with your grief and continue with your life that pays tribute to the memory of one gone. I believe that my dad is very proud of me and my siblings and the way with which we have dealt with his death and how we have continued to achieve our goals in life and carry on despite feeling the loss of his physical presence every day.



Thank you, Sue. I believe with all my heart your dad is crazy proud of you, just like he always was. Love you.

And now, Dale and Ensley Guffey. Ensley’s been on here before, talking about The Zeppo, Bad Girls, and Consequences. His wife, Dale, I first encountered at the 2008 Slayage conference. I talked about her on here and her wonderful southern accent that I enjoyed listening to as she gave one of the papers. She is the author of Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon (as K. Dale Koontz), and one of the funniest people at the conference every year. On top of teaching film studies, Dale has two blogs: Mockingbird's Nest and Unfettered Brilliance. Ensley blogs at Solomon Mao's, and check out his recent Watcher Junior article here. These two are fabulous together (at their recent wedding, the cake topper was Buffy in the prom dress and jacket and Captain John Sheridan), and I asked if they might consider a week to tackle as a team. They chose “The Body,” and have decided to present their commentary in a very new and exciting way for the Rewatch. Take it away, Dale and Ensley!

“And Now We All Hurt”: C’mon Over and Watch ‘The Body’ With Us

K. Dale Koontz and Ensley F. Guffey

“The Body” is not the easiest episode to write about and as such it’s been written about a lot. For those who might be interested, we recommend Whedon’s own commentary on the episode, and the relevant sections in Rhonda Wilcox’s Why Buffy Matters; Matthew Pateman’s The Aesthetics of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Lavery and Wilcox’s Fighting the Forces; and Edwards, Rambo, and South’s Buffy Goes Dark FOR STARTERS!! Those are tough acts to follow, so we decided to do something different. Since this series is all about (re)watching BtVS, we thought we’d invite you into our livingroom to watch it with us. We set up our camera, hit “play” and then kept hitting “pause” to talk about what we were watching, and to make the kitten dance for the camera. The results (edited to make us seem smarter and more polished of speech than we actually are) follow. We hope you enjoy.

Dale: So – the big reveal has already been made. One of the things I’m always looking for is color, and here we see Joyce in this kind of beige and grey. The last time we saw her, she was in this vibrant long dress, she’s going out on this date, she’s so excited and she’s bantering with Buffy, and it’s a wonderful thing to see.

Ensley: Things are finally starting to work out for her.

D: And then . . . we go here.

(Buffy comes in, wearing red. Sees vibrant bouquet from Joyce’s date.)

D: Buffy calls Joyce “flower-getting lady” at the very start of the episode; it’s a painful reminder that the only flowers Joyce is ever going to get again are funeral bouquets.

E: Buffy’s voice is so small when she says “Mommy?” The way her voice breaks there.

D: That always gets me.

(Credits roll. Holiday dinner memory.)

D: Look at all the color, the candlelight.

(Anya reveals that Santa exists and he disembowels children)

D: Even in an alternative reality – that’s Anya. This is one of my very favorite Anya episodes and in that holiday memory scene, Anya is telling the truth, that Santa – that it’s a myth it’s a myth – and she sounds very self-possessed and very confident and very blunt. And she’s gonna have the bluntness later on that we all want, but it’s a different side of Anya.

E: Right.

(Happy memories of joking in the kitchen with parent figures Joyce/Giles – tease about band candy – then pie slips and we’re looking at Joyce’s too-still face.)

E: Ohh – nice. Nice hand-held camera work.

D: See how jerky it is?

E: And cool, calm, collected Buffy is just - -

D: Gone.

E: And we just have 8 year old Buffy.

(Buffy on phone with 911.)

D: Something that’s been pointed out again and again is – there is no music.

(Zoom in on body, reverse to Buffy’s face.)

E: Nice.

D: Pulling her skirt back down?

E: Right. There’s something – a dead body, it’s somehow already so exposed. It’s just so – empty. And the added insult of something like a skirt that’s scrunched up too high; it’s just so much more indecent somehow than if somebody had just fallen asleep on the couch and the skirt was hiked up in their sleep.

D: Well, this is one of those episodes that I both love and I hate. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have really strong emotions about this episode and it’s because – this is not an episode that’s about vampires. This is about—there’s nothing here that we can read as metaphor or symbol. It makes so many people so very, very uncomfortable.

E: This really is just a child dealing with the death of a parent. I’m really noticing the camerawork this time around and the different techniques used, like the long shot of the phone’s number pad.

(EMTs work – go into “miracle daydream,” then cut to living room with dead Joyce)

D: I hate Whedon.

E: But that’s how it is. I mean . . . yeah, you kind of hate Whedon for it, but this is actually one of the reasons I love this episode: because this is how it is. I remember when Dad got sick; it was that kind of thing. There were these flash daydreams, kind of, with everything going on, that everything would be fine. Doctors would be able to fix him and life would go back to what it was.

(Talk with EMT – Buffy’s so small)

E: The camerawork deliberately makes her look small. You forget how small Gellar actually is and the camera angles and positioning is designed to emphasize and even overemphasize that because you’re not dealing with the Slayer here. You’re dealing with the very young woman who’s just facing this horrible and utterly normal thing. The way they shot over the EMT’s shoulder makes her seem smaller and therefore more vulnerable.

(Buffy – “Good luck” to the departing EMTs.)

D: Hmmf.

E: ‘Cause you feel like you ought to say something, that you have to say something.

(Buffy throws up, wind chimes)

E: I like that. The wind chimes.

(birdsong)

D: I love this part. It shows how ordinary life is going on.

E: Because when you’re in that situation, it really feels like the world should be stopped, because your world has. I mean, it’s just – you’re psychically shattering and that things are going on normally is just incomprehensible.

D: I think the wind chimes are good for that because it’s rhythmic but it’s also kind of a broken sound. (Paper towel) And Buffy has to clean up, because now there’s no one else to do it.

(Buffy “We’re not supposed to move the body!”)

E: Oh, God.

D: She feels so disloyal and the shock of realizing she said “the body” instead of “mom” or “her.”

E: That first realization.

D: And no one closes her eyes.

E: I don’t think you actually can.

D: But it’s a trope from TV and from movies. Whedon’s shattering quite a few of those with this episode. The transition to Dawn in the bathroom is classic Whedon misdirection. It seems like she already knows about her mother’s death, but actually she’s angsting over high school crap.

(Dawn to cute boy in art class: “And there’s just way more important stuff going on.”)

D: And that’s just a perfect line. I always thought the “negative space” idea was just inspired. In this case, it’s what happens to these two when Joyce isn’t there.

E: I always kind of read that as liminal space – because you do divide it into life when Joyce was alive, and life after. I think for most humans, and I know for me, it’s life while your parents are still alive and life after.

D: Buffy’s always been really good about taking those big moments. I remember when I first discovered Buffy, so much is made about when she and Angel first sleep together, moment of perfect contentment, he loses his soul, and it’s a lovely metaphor for something that most girls have felt, which is – the guy changes. But that’s what makes this episode so powerful – there isn’t any symbolism, there isn’t any metaphor – it’s stripped down. It’s raw.

E: It’s so rarely done in television that you have such an honest look at loss. It really is. On a side note, Sunnydale High School is a really nice school! I understand for what’s coming up, why we need the windows, but still – that’s a really nice school.

D: Not to mention – you try having them draw from a nude in a North Cackalacky school, and...

E: Well, it is California. Before California went broke.

(Dawn to Buffy: “Something’s going on. Tell me what’s going on.”)

D: Careful what you wish for.

(Joyce on slab in morgue. Open eyes, clothes being cut off for the autopsy. The sound of shears.)

E: More hand held camera work. Utter silence.

(Willow’s indecision about what to wear.)

D: She (Hannigan) does this so well.

(Willow: “Why can’t I just dress like a grown-up? Can’t I be a grown-up?”)

E: That’s a nice line.

D: This is actually the first Willow/Tara kiss. Whedon says he wanted it to not be a big deal. It seems logical here, as if it just grew organically out of Tara’s need to offer comfort to Willow, and I like that Tara says “we” can do this.

E: I think for a lot of these characters – for everybody – this is a transition between childhood and adulthood.

D: College traditionally is that bridge – of time, if not necessarily of experience.

E: Yeah, it is, but I think there’s something more here. The death of a parent brings with it this sudden realization that you have to be a grown-up. That the grown-ups are gone and they’re not going to be there. I love Willow’s line here: “Can’t I be a grown-up?” It just encapsulates all of that.

(Xander and Anya arrive in room – Anya is asking for direction – “What will we be expected to do?” No answer.)

E: I like that in the end Willow dresses like Willow.

D: I never paid attention to that.

(Xander’s rant looking for something to blame)

E: Desperate need to find somebody to blame.

D: To have something to do.

(Willow to Xander – “It just happened.”)

E: And that’s what’s so hard.

(Willow: Because it’s not okay for you to be asking these things! Anya: But I don’t understand!)

D: And I love Anya a little for that speech.

E: Oh yeah! I love Anya a lot for that speech!

D: One of the things Whedon does so well here – and that Anya really wants to know: What am I supposed to do? What rituals do I observe? Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? Is that the “helpful thing to do?” Literally, they all deal with it in different ways.

E: I really like Anya’s bit because – if a child could articulate all of its confusion and bewilderment at such a time – that would be it.

(Xander punches wall, business of getting his hand out, which is cut and bloody. Tara says, “It hurts,” and she and Xander share a moment.)

D: You know, that’s something he said at the beginning of the last episode when he’s “Puffy Xander” and he’s saying it as a joke in that one. After Buffy’s been beating him up for practice, he says something about, “No, no, I can tell I’m alive because of the pain.”

E: Oh, yeah. That moment between Xander and Tara. That was nice. There for a couple of years, there was a dent in the emergency room at Cleveland Memorial Hospital. I did the same thing.

D: In a wall??

E: Yeah. Only time I’ve ever done anything like that in my life. I’m not sure how much of it was genuine frustration and how much of it was, well, this is what you do if you’re a man. You punch things. On a side note – Xander is very “70s Xander” in this one. He’s got the shaggy 70s hair, he’s got the suede jacket going on, and these weird greenish-yellow pants. Check him out – he’s very 70s Xander.

D: Yeah. He’s all earth tones. And you know, my dorm room was never that nice.

(Canted angles – everything’s off-kilter. Pans out of room to see Xander’s car getting ticketed.)

E: Life goes on.

(Come up on Joyce’s face as doctor concludes autopsy.)

D: The autopsy doc: busiest man in Sunnydale.

E: Isn’t that the truth?

(Waiting room – hugs, small talk.)

D: Just cliché and cliché. But you have to say something.

E: Yeah.

(Anya: “I wish that Joyce didn’t die. Because she was nice. And now we all hurt.” She’s trying SO HARD. Buffy seems to get it, even though the rest are uncomfortable with her bluntness.)

E: Another moment of honesty from Anya.

(Gang goes off to the vending machines.)

D: Another way you can tell it was made in California. Southerners would have had casseroles and hard-boiled eggs by now. There would’ve been a devilled-egg plate in that lounge by now.

(Tara & Buffy on couch, side by side)

E: This is a good bit.

D: Yes. When they’re side by side, that’s really amazing. All though this, we see Buffy as being filmed as being very small. She has her shoulders bowed in and see – Tara is always the one who’s ducking her head and not wanting to talk, and here – Tara’s the one who’s looking like the stronger woman. She’s not looking at Buffy, but – Tara has gone through it and she’s about to help. I never noticed that before.

(Tara “It’s always sudden.”)

E: That’s how it was with Dad.

(Dawn sneaks into morgue.)

D: You know, as often as Dawn annoys me –

E: Which is often.

D: Which is often, this I get. As weird as that is, this I actually get.

E: For her, it’s not real until she sees the body.

D: Here Buffy’s in that red and Dawn’s in this ice-blue.

E: And I noticed that Tara’s in a sort of soothing blue.

(New vamp rises from morgue slab.)

E: (sigh) Sunnydale. Ew. Naked vampire.

D: What’s the cliché here – Unlife goes on?

(Buffy goes in search of Dawn.)

D: Dawn’s in trouble. Must be Tuesday.

E: Buffy’s spider-sense is tingling.

D: How truly weird is it that normalcy means she’s fighting vampires? No quipping here either.

E: And no fight music. And Buffy’s not fighting too well – this is a new vamp, she should be done by now.

D: How does she kill this one? I forget.

E: I don’t – bone saw! Slow, but it’ll do.

(Dawn and Buffy both on floor, Dawn rises to stare at her mother’s uncovered body.)

E: That’s nice camera work.

(Dawn doesn’t actually touch Joyce – cut to credits before contact is made.)

D: It’s an amazing episode.

E: Oh, yeah. It really is.

D: I think it’s also a standout – I can name some other episodes that break my heart, but I think one of the reasons that this is such a standout is there is no quipping in here.

E: And again, it really is an unusual episode of television for being such an honest, unvarnished look at loss.

D: Joyce is, in a way, the mom to all the Scoobies. We know with the possible exception of Cordelia, who’s left the show at this point, none of them come from happy families, so they spend an awful lot of time at Buffy’s house.

E: One of the things that make this episode so powerful is that we don’t see Joyce die. We’re with Buffy. We come in and we find her. That’s unusual in television for a character we know. One of the things that speculative fiction does very, very well is – oddly enough – realism. There’s one vampire in this, granted, but that’s it. It’s very much an essay into realism – even Buffy’s flashbacks are realism. Like Tara says, it’s the crazy thoughts.

D: You feel like you’re losing it.

E: Right.

D: In the formula that we’re used to, especially if it’s a beloved character, there are a few standard things that happen. Either they go out in a blaze of glory, or you at least see some kind of look of shock on their face as they reach for the phone, but then after the body is discovered… if they go out in a blaze of glory, okay, that’s the impetus to swear revenge. Here, there’s nothing to swear revenge on – that’s one of the things that gets Xander so frustrated.

E: That there’s no one to blame. Because honestly, despite what Xander says, stuff does just happen.

D: Yeah. And that’s a part of life that just sucks. If they don’t go out in a blaze of glory, then usually, the next scene is the funeral. You don’t see all of this. You don’t see the indecision and the confusion, the desperation you see especially in Willow and Anya – you want to do things right, but you don’t know what right is. Willow, who we haven’t seen dither this much since Season One, can’t even decide what shirt to wear.

E: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Willow dither that much.

D: Certainly not like that – not over clothes.

E: It strikes home to me because I know all this. I know the crazy thoughts, the things that make you think you’re losing it, those flash fantasies and the lips that move and make no sense, the urge to punch something – I know all of that. There’s such an urge to self-flagellate. It’s a brilliant episode and I admire Whedon for this, I always have. I can’t think of any other episode of a television show that ever looked at this quite so directly. Again, I think what Whedon does with sound and the absence thereof – at some points, it’s not even “no music,” it’s the complete absence of sound.

D: That’s an echo – ha, residual sound – of what’s going on inside. Because you’re in your own head; you’re not hearing anything anyway. It would be completely silent. Something else you said – this episode is one of those events that’s a clear dividing line.

E: You got before and you’ve got after. With Joyce and without Joyce. And I like that Whedon excluded Spike and Angel from this episode. I like that this is about ordinary people dealing with an ordinary thing.

D: Yeah. This is not the time for me to learn how vampires deal with death.

E: And it’s not about how a Slayer deals with death, either. It’s about how Buffy deals with death. It’s a very, very human episode.

D: Anya’s speech gets me every time, and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen this episode.

E: There are several points in this one that get me.

D: What else? Because there are a couple that get me. Hearing Buffy say, “Mommy?” and hearing that crack when she performs CPR.

E: That exchange between Willow and Tara when Willow’s just blithering and you have those few seconds of silence when Xander and Anya pull up. That whole scene in the beginning where Buffy is just completely at a loss for what to do – that always gets me, because it’s so real. You don’t know what to do; you’re an 8-year-old kid again who doesn’t know what to do and all the CPR classes fly right out of your head.

D: Yeah, Buffy can do a flying spin kick but doesn’t remember how to do CPR.

E: Because it doesn’t matter at that point if you’re a superhero or not – you’re just another human being in a world of pain that you can’t even begin to process. And I like that Buffy is very small at that point; that even her voice is so very small.

D: Nobody’s big in that moment, not even the Slayer.



Thank you, Dale and Ensley!

Next week: You will be entertained by the two Nikkis -- myself and Nikki Fuller! Episodes are:

5.17 Forever
5.18 Intervention
5.19 Tough Love

Angel episodes are:

2.17 Disharmony
2.18 Dead End
2.19 Belonging

See you then!

Buffy Rewatch Week 34: Spoiler Forum

And here is the place where you can talk about The Body and Epiphany within the context of upcoming episodes of Buffy and Angel, without the fear of spoiling anyone.

Tom Waits meets Cookie Monster

My brother just sent this to me and it made me laugh out loud. I don't know how I've NEVER made this connection before, but now when Tom does the growly voice, I'm going to always picture Cookie Monster singing. ;)

Buffy Rewatch Week 33

5.13 Blood Ties
5.14 Crush
5.15 I Was Made to Love You

Follow along in Bite Me!, pp. 262-266.

This week’s Angel episodes:
2.13 Happy Anniversary
2.14 The Thin Dead Line
2.15 Reprise


Most hardcore fans of long-running television shows can rattle off their favourite seasons, in order, from best to worst. And whenever I’m asked to do that, I always begin, “Season 2, followed by season 5…” And yet, season 5 is the only season of the entire series where I can’t distinguish one episode title from the next. Sure, certain ones stand out, and I could tell you exactly what the plot was in that episode, but much of this season feels like one very long story told in 22 parts, with a few little diversions along the way (and those diversions, the standalone episodes, are the ones that usually stick out). So for me, watching the show each week in season 5 has been an “Ah! It’s THAT episode” kind of experience for me.

“Blood Ties” is where Dawn finds out she’s the key, and she goes through hell. This episode is the one that changes her from annoying childish sister into annoying depressive sister, and yet, the poor kid’s got good reason to be a wee bit miffed. (But I have to admit, a former work colleague and I would use the phrase, “Get out Get Out GET OUT!!” all the time. She was particularly brilliant at it, and the two of us would dissolve into peals of laughter every time. Our boss thought we were high.)

Using Dawn’s non-humanness as a metaphor for adoption, the writers play with a child’s re-evaluation of everything they know, and the standard process of beginning to question everything they thought was true. What I find really interesting in season 5 – something I didn’t really notice until this rewatch – is how Buffy doesn’t play the role of the older daughter, but the role of the father. Joyce frets the way any mother would, while Buffy holds her back and tells her to give Dawn space, normally the father’s role.

And wait… Ben is Glory? Glory is Ben? Yep, somehow Joss found a guy and girl who aren’t related but look EXACTLY alike (like seriously, their eyes are really far apart and they have the same nose and lips… how did he do that?) and now we get the intrigue of figuring out why they’re one and the same, what they have to do with each other, and why no one can remember that Ben is Glory and vice versa.

“Crush” is a showpiece for Spike once again, after the brilliance of “Fool for Love.” I love this episode, for the most part, although I’ve always been annoyed with Spike at the end for the way he treats all the women (which is the point, I get that, but… yeah). He lusts after Buffy, threatens to stake someone he’s spent a century with, and tosses poor Harmony away like she’s garbage. But Spike has always reacted to situations without always thinking, and that’s what he’s doing here.

What might be difficult to grasp now, especially with all the Spike love in this Rewatch (my pro-Spike comments being a big part of that) is that when the series first aired, there was a lot of Spike hate. You’ve probably heard of the Bangels versus the Spuffies, and that was a debate that raged like wildfire at the time. The Bangels – pronounced like Angel with a B on it, not Bangle like a bracelet, which is how many Spuffies purposely mispronounce it – were the ones who thought Buffy was better off with Angel. The Spuffies were the ones who wanted Spike and Buffy to get together. I’ll never forget going to a sci-fi con and attending a panel of Spuffies versus Bangels… I wasn’t on the panel (I wanted to leave the convention with all my teeth, after all), but I knew it would be fun to watch. And it was VICIOUS. The insults being thrown from one side of the room to the other were beyond rude, and it was like all politeness and camaraderie went out the window. I’ve been rather afraid of shippers ever since. When one person on the panel finally pointed to the back of the room and said, “Nikki Stafford is here… which side are YOU on, Nikki?” I thought I was going to pee my pants. I coughed and mumbled something in another language – it may have been elvish – and refused to answer the question.

The BtVS writers KNEW this debate was raging in the Buffyverse, and so they stoked it. They gave us pro-Angel episodes, and pro-Spike ones. They made Spike an evil bastard at times, and charming as hell the rest of the time. I had the pleasure of interviewing David Fury, the man responsible for creating Spike and the one who was brought in to write many of his lines, and I asked him exactly what he thought of the debate. Fury is known for not mincing words, and he told me flat out (I only published part of what he said in my book, because I feared what might happen to him if I published the whole thing!) Unfortunately I can’t say exactly what he said here (there are season 6 spoilers in his response) but the short version is, he saw Spike as a killer, and couldn’t figure out why people loved him as a romantic lead. Um… was he watching the show?

But anyway… regardless of how disgusting Spike is at the end of Crush, he’s still brilliant in the rest of the episode, and VERY funny. If you’re not watching Angel, this episode was a carryover from an episode that started over on Angel. See (spoilers for earlier season 2 Angel episodes ahead!), there’s this evil law firm, and they used a spell to bring Darla back from the dead, but she’s no longer a vampire. But then Drusilla shows up and takes care of that, siring Darla. Darla had originally sired Angel, who sired Drusilla, and therefore Darla has been Drusilla’s Grandma Vampy for over a century, but now Drusilla is Darla’s sire… this family tree is getting really confusing. Meanwhile Angel’s becoming dark, like Harry Potter in the fifth book dark, and he no longer has any sympathy for anyone who came before him. He lures Dru and Darla down to an abandoned warehouse that he covers in gasoline, and when they’re standing near it, he flicks a cigarette at them and they go up in flames. Darla manages to whack a hydrant with a sledgehammer and the two women are able to douse the flames, but they’re burned and scarred, and they realize that Angel may be even more soulless than they are. (All good stuff.. you should really be watching Angel!) So that’s where Dru’s at when she comes to town, with just a few scars left over from the attack.

And finally we have “I Was Made to Love You.” With all of the amazing Glory stuff going on, taking a breather to focus on the sexbot storyline seemed a bit off when it first aired, but April is intriguing, and it plays into Buffy’s sense of loss post-Riley and helps unburden her of the idea that maybe, if she’d just been a better girlfriend, she could have kept both Riley and Angel around. And it introduces us to... well, I'll save that for another post.

For me, though, this episode has become almost excruciating to watch ever since the first time I watched the season through. Because I know what’s coming. I know that Joyce is going to spin around in that dress, that Buffy and Dawn will rib her, that she will get out there and find happiness again, that I will absolutely adore her throughout the episode… and then that ending is going to happen. This time, it was worse than before. Just seeing Buffy in the now-infamous red shirt as Xander was fixing the window was enough to make the lump begin to form. And when she walked in the door and you could see Joyce in the background, the sobs just leapt from my chest. I didn’t even feel them coming, I just choked and made this weird noise.

I don’t think it’s much of a secret for the first-timers what is coming next. There’s a reason I put next week’s episode on its own and not ganged with any others. And the title – “The Body” – is a bit of a giveaway. I cannot wait to watch it with you and hear your reactions to it.

But until then, let’s focus on this week’s episodes. First up, returning just a couple of weeks after she last told us about her sister meeting Marc Blucas, is Tanya Cochran!

And the Energy Became Flesh: Thoughts on Language, Knowledge, Power, and Family

Tanya R. Cochran

I’m going to try to do something I have difficulty doing: write a shortish response to a profoundly rich text. To do so, I’m sticking to just one episode. So without a clever or catchy or cleverly catchy introduction, here it is—the point: “Blood Ties” not only highlights the relationship between language, knowledge, power, and family but also compels us to consider the advantages and disadvantages of knowing, the differences and similarities between reality and fantasy.

Some form of the word know is spoken over sixty times in “Blood Ties,” so it’s clearly important. It stands out. In fact, I heard it so often during my rewatch (which led me to count) that I began to wonder if writer Steven DeKnight deliberately repeated the word to send us a message. Early on in the episode, Dawn voices what she’s been feeling for a while now. She’s often out of rather in the know: “Oh. Right. Of course. Can’t let Dawn hear anything. Fine. I’m just gonna go to bed. That way I won’t accidentally get exposed to, like, words.” She knows that there’s something Buffy and the others know that she’s not supposed to know.

Later, unbeknownst to Buffy and Joyce, she climbs out of her bedroom window to pursue answers. And where does she discover what she knows she doesn’t know? In a book. Giles notebook, filled with handwritten language. And what does the notebook say? The scene unfolds with layered significance as Dawn begins to read aloud and Spike takes over. The words on the page, words brought to life by their voices, themselves bring knowledge to light as the sentences and paragraphs narrate the transformation of energy into flesh. Now Dawn knows, understands what she is: a key. But what does that mean? Soon the whole gang also knows that she knows.

Interestingly, this new knowledge does not comfort Dawn—or anyone else. Rather, it threatens to destroy her reality. Is she flesh and blood? Is her family real? Can she even trust what feel like her own memories? No reason to get an education (another form of knowledge); blobs of energy don’t need one, she spits at Joyce. She destroys her journals, the Dawnmeister Chronicles, symbols of what she now perceives to be fantasies and lies. But as Buffy says later, Dawn deserves to know who she is, where she came from, and why she exists. These are the “big” questions we all ask at some point, and not knowing is often worse than whatever reality we discover by asking: “She needs to know. Or it’s just gonna eat away at her,” says Buffy. Eat away at her in more ways than one! On the run, Dawn finds Ben who soon morphs into Glory who asks, “Don’t I know you?” As long as Glory can’t answer that question, the key remains safely tucked away in ignorance.

In many ways, “Blood Ties” (even its title) reminds me of “Family” because Buffy has been wrestling with the questions of Dawn’s origins, her placement in the Summers family, and the nature of the connection between the “sisters.” Buffy, too, has questioned her memories, debated their authenticity. Are false memories really false? Can a very real mystical key also be a very real, annoying baby sister? Apparently so. Just as in “Family” when Tara’s father threatens to take her away, Buffy (and the others) must make a decision and put that decision into words. Clearly, there is power in articulation; words can create reality. When Buffy finds Dawn, knowing what Buffy knows about Glory, she growls, “Get away from my sister.” This declaration of Buffy’s reality, of what she is now certain about in her heart is exactly what Dawn needs to hear. To be sure Dawn and we get the message, after a brief brawl with the “hell-bitch” Buffy takes blood from her own wound and blends it with that of Dawn’s, from the cut Dawn self-inflicted earlier. “It’s Summers blood.” Finally, Dawn believes her when Buffy says that she loves Dawn, that Dawn is her sister. Not unlike two little girls performing a ritual on a grade school playground with straight-pin pricked fingers, Buffy and Dawn declare their sibling relationship, a bond created through blood.

I had the pleasure of watching this week’s trio of episodes with my best friend Wendy while visiting her in San Francisco. After “Blood Ties,” we talked a little bit before moving on to “Crush” and “I Was Made to Love You.” Wendy said something I found worthy of pondering, and I hope you find it worthy also. She said that the relationships among ideas, experiences, and people will always tell us more about reality than considering them separately. In other words, reality manifests in connectedness. I know, maybe that’s not a novel concept. For me, though, Wendy pinpointed anew what any Buffy enthusiast knows: Whedon and his team really, really, really believe in chosen family and investing in deep, meaningful relationships because family is the “real stuff” of life—even if family can be lost or taken away. In “Blood Ties,” I think Buffy finally realizes that she doesn’t have to fear what she doesn’t know or understand about Dawn; they can find out the answers to the big questions together. What’s important is that the energy became flesh, the flesh is Dawn, Dawn is her sister, and they are family. By the end of “I Was Made to Love You” (a title we might read to refer to April and Dawn as the Is, Warren and Buffy as the Yous), I think we all realize that more than ever before Buffy needs all of the family she has—blood and chosen.

And that’s the long shortishness of it.


Thank you, Tanya! Our second guest is Kristen Romanelli! Kristen, who is engaged to another Buffy Rewatcher, David Kociemba, last joined us to discuss “Choices” and “The Prom,” and is the editor of Watcher Junior. This week, she’s here to talk about Robot Sex. ;)

Love, Loneliness, and Robot Sex

Kristen Romanelli

There’s so much awesome spoilage in here that I can’t write this without huge swaths of text getting hidden. Like, many paragraphs worth. I’m just going to not mention any of it, because those of you who know… you know. Those of you who don’t: You’ll see.

Season 5 tends to get a bum rap. I know that it’s probably because of the Dawn-ness of the season, but I’ve always been quite fond of it (Dawn-ness included). Perhaps it’s because of the increased role of Spike (Boo-boo!). The perpetual argument that occurs in the Romanelli-Kociemba household revolves around “Angel or Spike?” You think I’m kidding. Digression aside, I like to think that I enjoy this season because the mature turn it takes. Joyce is facing health problems! The Big Bad is a god! Riley gets all weird and leaves! Robot sex!

Robot sex? Buffy always featured love and loneliness (and being alone) as themes, and it had even touched on the concept of robot sex (and killer robots) in the past (remember “Ted” in Week Eight of the Rewatch?), but the three finally converged in “I Was Made to Love You.”

The two episodes preceding “I Was Made to Love You” — “Blood Ties” and “Crush” — prepare us with the emotional complexities of both love and loneliness (romantic and familial). Dawn, already feeling alienated due to being a “fourteen-year old hormone bomb,” accidentally learns that she is the Key — that “blob of energy” sought by both the Scoobies and Glory. Who is with her during this moment of discovery?

Love’s Bitch, himself. Spike is wrapped in his loneliness, created by his fixation with Buffy. He did this as William with Cecily, and also in his relationship with Drusilla. Spike fiercely romanticizes and idealizes the women he loves. He puts them so far up on a pedestal that he isolates himself.

Outsider and outsider. Spike, who had already found himself, oddly, in a big brother position with Dawn, now has a commonality with the little bit. He now has sympathy for her. When Buffy storms into his crypt and demands why Spike “let [Dawn] find out like that,” he tells her, “You didn't think you could keep the truth from her forever, did you? Maybe if you had been more honest with her in the first place, you wouldn't be trying to make yourself feel better with a round of Kick The Spike.”

He’s not wrong.

Buffy redeems herself and repairs her relationship with Dawn, however, when she shows up just in time to save her sister from getting her brain sucked by Glory. At the end of the battle, Buffy reminds Dawn that she’s still her sister and she loves her regardless of her mystical origin. She tells her that she has “Summers blood.” “It's just like mine. It doesn't matter where you came from, or, or how you got here. You are my sister. There's no way you could annoy me so much if you weren't.”

Spike doesn’t get so touching a resolution. Not even in Buffy’s Valentine’s Day episode. He tries. He really does. He tries pleasantly chatting with Buffy at the Grand Re-Opening of the Bronze; he buddies up with Dawn and Joyce; he even takes Buffy on a slay-date! Okay, sure, she didn’t know it at the time…
BUFFY: What ... is this? The late-night stakeout, the bogus suspects, the flask? Is this a date?
SPIKE: A d- Please! A date? You are completely off your bird! I mean— Do you want it to be?
BUFFY: Oh, my god.

As Buffy wigs, Spike spills his guts to her (as he may have some trouble baring his soul). The honesty he, himself, had recommended in the prior episode backfires terribly and he finds himself alone again. Until Drusilla emerges from the shadows, still showing the burns from her encounter with Angel in L.A.

The series of events that follow are so misguided and desperate of Spike, that I can barely write about it without stopping to headdesk. In fact, his ruse to cajole Buffy into admitting love for him by sacrificing Dru for her backfires even more tremendously than the slay-date. Buffy rejects him (and has his “invitation” blocked from her home), Harmony grows a spine and beats him up (“I gave you the best ... bunch of months of my life!” ::crossbow slam!::), and even Drusilla leaves, telling him, “Even I can't help you now.”

What’s a guy this lonely to do?

Meet April! April is perky, and happy, and programmed to be a perfect girlfriend. Or at least Warren Mears’s idea of the perfect girlfriend, which seems to be a blank slate, devoid of agency, that he can fill with phone numbers, 13 sex-related programs, and the desire to please and praise him. When she first appeared, I turned to David and said, “This poor girl was obviously dressed by a guy.”

In very little time, April’s single-minded, persistent mission to find her boyfriend Warren, combined with her incredible display of strength when she throws a naughty-mouthed Spike through a window, causes the Scooby gang to come to a conclusion:
BUFFY: So, what do you guys think she is? I mean, this may sound nuts, but I kinda got the impression that she was a—
TARA: Robot.
XANDER: Oh yeah, robot.
BUFFY: Yeah, I was gonna say robot.

In all fairness, they’ve had robot (and cyborg) experience in the past. However, Katrina, Warren’s human girlfriend, doesn’t hesitate to jump to the “that’s a robot” conclusion after as she watches April take on Buffy. She immediately rejects Warren and runs away in disgust.

I think this exchange summarizes it nicely:
ANYA: Why would anyone do that if they could have a real live person?
WILLOW: Maybe he couldn't. Find a real person.
BUFFY: Oh, come on. The guy's just a big wedge of sleaze, don't make excuses for him.
WILLOW: I'm not, I'm just saying, people get lonely, and maybe having someone around, even someone you made up ... maybe it's easier.
TARA: But it's so weird. I mean, everyone wants a nice normal person to share with, but this guy, if he couldn't find that, I guess it's ... kinda sad.

Of course Spike places an order. He’s the epitome of lovesick, depraved, and lonely.

I can’t leave this without mentioning Joyce. Poor Joyce. In these episodes, she was recovering from her health scare and being the supportive mom, even after finding out that her youngest daughter is a “glowy key thing.” In “I Was Made to Love You,” Joyce, long past her own robotic experience, has a date with the unseen Brian. Joyce fusses about preparing for the date, and when she comes home, she’s practically giddy — to the point where she teases Buffy about leaving her bra in Brian’s car (no, in the restaurant… on the desert cart!). It seems like everything is finally coming up Joyce.

I told David that I wasn’t planning on quoting him, but I think that, after all, I’ll have to mention something he wrote in his chapter of Buffy Goes Dark (“Understanding the Espensode”): “Buffy helplessly watches April the robot girlfriend ‘die’ just moments before she walks in on her mother’s own dead body. … Buffy promises to stay by April’s side as she dies, while Buffy’s mother dies alone.”

Even after an episode of zany sexbot antics, it’s all about being alone.


Whew… thank you, Kristen! (I can feel that lump growing some more now!)

Next week: Joss Whedon’s masterpiece, “The Body.” I will be talking about the episode along with husband-and-wife academic team Dale and Ensley Guffey, and a featured appearance from my best friend, who will bring a personal story to the episode. Prepare yourself… we only have one episode next week, so that will allow you to watch it three times. ;)

And if you’re watching Angel, next week’s episode is “Epiphany.” See you then!

Buffy Rewatch Week 33: Spoiler Forum

As always, here is where you can talk about this week's Buffy episodes (and Angel!) without fear of spoilage.

So... how strange was it this week to notice the first Scoob April walks up to and asks about Warren is none other than Tara? :::shudder::: Just seeing Warren made me think of what he'll do in Season 6...

Game of Thrones RPG

Thanks to Chris for sending this to me... HILARIOUS!!! (And I should warn you, it's very NSFW, and very spoilery for season 1 of Game of Thrones.)

Buffy Rewatch Week 32

5.10 Into the Woods
5.11 Triangle
5.12 Checkpoint

Follow along in Bite Me! on pp. 259-262.

And if you’re also watching Angel, this week’s episodes are

2.10 Reunion
2.11 Redefinition
2.12 Blood Money

Follow along in Once Bitten on pp. 169-175.

Well, this week we say goodbye to Riley and find out what Glory really is. I have to say, though, despite my sympathy to Riley on this rewatch, it doesn’t change that I never really saw any chemistry between the two characters, so something in “Into the Woods” has always fallen a little flat for me. Riley’s absolutely right when he tells her that he’ll always come second to her slaying and that he’s just become convenient (I adored that scene between the two of them, and thought it was powerful, brilliant writing and wonderful acting, more than I’ve ever noticed before). But when Xander tells her the same thing, and then says to go after him if she really, truly, honestly believes that he could be the one – and she DOES – I’ve never really bought it. She knows they’re right, and it’s like she runs after Riley out of some misplaced sympathy. (And I remember looking to the heavens at the end of this episode the first time I saw it, while whispering “thankyouthankyouthankyou.” The followup scene where Xander goes to Anya is lovely. We’ve never really seen a single scene where she seems caring or he treats her as anything other than a sexy joke, but when Xander sees Buffy about to lose Riley, he realizes how lucky he really is.

“Triangle” is an episode has always irked me (Willow is truly annoying and a bit of a bully in the beginning, and I don’t like not loving Willow!) but for some reason I liked it a lot more this time around. I particularly liked the ending, where like the mother of the baby that King Solomon threatens to cut in half, Anya steps up and refuses to let the troll (played by that guy who used to be the aide on ER) hurt him, and offers herself up instead. That moment happened because of Xander’s declaration in the previous episode.

“Checkpoint” has always been a great sequel to “Helpless,” resolving what the Watcher’s Council does to Buffy and Giles in that episode and putting the power back in Buffy’s hands. It’s a very important turn in her character. Buffy’s no longer the “one girl in all the world,” but the one WOMAN. She thought her life was tough in high school, but that was nothing compared to how complicated it’s become… and will continue to be. It’s also the episode where Buffy brings Joyce and Dawn to Spike’s lair (and he and Joyce discuss “Passions”) which is a turn in Buffy and Spike’s relationship that I love.

First up for this week’s guest hosts is Bryan Curry, with his first contribution to the Rewatch. Bryan contacted me after I went public with the Rewatch and he asked if he could join in. Bryan is the co-host of the Hellmouth Podcast (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and Investigating Angel podcast (Angel The Series). Both podcasts are an episode-by-episode review of the series, an indepth discussion of the characters, themes, plot devices and brief episode recaps. The podcasts attempt to take Buffy and Angel and show them to you in a completely new and different way. You may be amazed at what you missed the first time you saw Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Angel.

Take it away, Bryan!

If You Don’t Know Me By Now…

by Bryan Curry

When I was given the opportunity to participate in the Buffy Rewatch project I began looking over the episodes that were available for review and when I saw this grouping of episodes I had to snatch them up. These three episodes are a redefinition of many of the relationships that we have seen to this point in season 5. Problems that have been building from season 4 and in some cases as far back as season 3 have come to a head and things are about to change in Sunnydale forever. It all stems from our inability to see often what is right in front of us. To see those around us for whom they truly are; to understand their wants and needs and to refrain from projecting our own perceptions of their character onto them.

Into The Woods

“Into The Woods” is an examination of the Buffy/Riley relationship that began back in season 4. After the crushing dissolution of her relationship with Angel, Buffy has decided that the best path is forward and seeks to move on with her life and not look back. While I don’t think any part of that plan involved a new long-term relationship… enter Riley Finn. I find myself to be in the minority often times when in discussions about Riley; I am a big Riley fan and often argue that Riley was probably the best suited man for Buffy in terms of a romantic relationship.

Riley’s character, no pun intended, seems as though he was made in a laboratory and was engineered by the writers to be a negative or inverse image of Angel. In every way that Angel was mysterious, dangerous, tragic and brooding; Riley is upfront, charismatic, the all-American corn fed boy from Iowa. He was an experiment into what would happen if Buffy found a lasting relationship with a nice, ‘normal’ guy. Normal by Sunnydale standards anyway.

I always felt that this was Buffy’s best opportunity for being content. I use to say that Riley was Buffy’s best chance at love and happiness but I have come to learn that contentment and happiness, while not mutually exclusive, can be defined separately.

Riley provides Buffy with comfort and stability, while it is something that Buffy has longed for and probably what she loves most about Riley; it is not what she craves. Buffy craves passion, messy love and a love that elicits that feeling of desperation when she isn’t with the one she cares about. Buffy doesn’t feel this way about Riley, whether that is because she has shut herself off from him and kept him at a distance, or whether it is because Riley is too straight and narrow to elicit that type of reaction is something we could debate indefinitely.

The fact of the matter is that Riley sees that Buffy’s feelings for him are a pale, shallow, non-reflection of his feelings for her. He cannot understand how Angel, someone from her past, can still hold such sway over her and decides to venture into the darkness that Buffy seems to inhabit and try and figure it out on his own. What begins as a casual experiment becomes an addiction. Riley pays vampires to feed on him. What he finds so attractive is the need, the feeling he gets from a vampire who feeds on him. That longing to devour him whole physically and metaphorically is precisely what he is missing in his relationship with Buffy.

In retrospect, it is possible to see how this relationship was doomed to failure from the beginning. We find that Riley’s desire is to be Buffy’s protector, her support and her greatest desire. As the slayer, the chosen one who stands for the power, strength and independence of the ‘feminine’ he is asking for that which above all else Buffy cannot give. In effect, to be the girl that Riley wants her to be, Buffy would have to cease to be Buffy.

When it is revealed to Buffy what Riley has been up to she reacts violently and from her perspective there is perhaps no greater betrayal than what she finds Riley in the midst of. Buffy puts her life in jeopardy, daily; to protect people from the very evil Riley has walked right into. In season 1 Nightmares we saw that Buffy’s nightmare was something that Riley has sought out. It would have been crushing to find out that Riley had been cheating on Buffy, but to find that he had been cheating on her with the one thing that she had been pre-destined to fight is a betrayal above and beyond.

I think that in truth Riley was glad to get caught because it forced the two of them to face the problems in their relationship. Riley has been given an opportunity to return to the military and fight demons with Graham, what he is looking for from Buffy is a plea for him to stay. Even if Buffy had not caught Riley with a vampire, I am not sure that this is something that she could have given him.

So we see that in the final moments as Riley prepares to leave, Xander confronts Buffy. His role in this moment is to bring perspective and uncomfortable truth to what we have witnessed in Buffy and Riley’s relationship over the past year. Riley was convenient, he was comfortable; he was there when Buffy wanted him, and gone when she didn’t. Xander cautions Buffy that because she has been shut off, it is possible that she is missing out on a once in a lifetime kind of love.

Xander: If he’s not the guy, if what he needs from you just isn’t there, let him go. Break his heart, and make it a clean break. But if you really think you can love this guy… I’m talking scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need… if you’re ready for that, then think about what you’re about to lose.


Buffy loses; she arrives too late to stop Riley from leaving with the military. For people like me it is a sad moment, elsewhere in the Whedonverse there are choruses of cheers from the people who couldn’t wait for Riley to be out of the picture. One thing we all have in common is an understanding that despite whether or not Riley was good for Buffy, their relationship was not ‘ideal’ for Buffy in the sense that her definition of happiness, her type of love is not something that Riley could ever give her and the same could be said for Riley.

Triangle
In the aftermath of Riley’s departure we are faced with another, even more complicated, relationship that is experiencing its own turmoil. The relationship triangle involving Xander and the two prominent women in his life Willow and Anya. The nature of the conflict in this relationship is the apparent dislike between Willow and Anya, which began back in Season 3. As the two of them bicker and argue they each try to force Xander to choose sides, preferably their own.

Xander becomes frustrated that he is constantly being forced to choose between his girlfriend and his best friend. The two women are constantly frustrated, each feeling justified in their arguments and feeling as though if Xander takes sides with the other it is simply a result of the relationship between the two and could never be based on the merits of the argument itself.

This is the structure of this self-perpetuating argument between these three that in this episode is going to have destructive consequences.

Giles has gone to see the Watcher’s Council and see if they have any information or resources that might prove useful with regards to Glory. Willow is taking the opportunity to raid the magic shop and try some spells, her justification being that it could aid Buffy in her Slayer duties. Willow and Anya argue about how Willow is abusing Giles’ absence and each tries to draw Xander into the argument once again to choose sides. His frustration boils over and he leaves them to solve this on their own. Their continued fighting leads to a fumbling of the spell and Olaf is released from his mystical prison and begins to wreak havoc on Sunnydale.

In a fun and interesting turn of events, Willow and Anya are forced to work together to try and track down Olaf and reverse the spell before anyone gets hurt. As we watch these hijinks unfold we get uncommonly honest communication between Willow and Anya. Their relationship problems don’t stem from a genuine dislike of each other; rather, it is based in mutual feelings of protection for Xander. Willow is concerned that at some point, should the relationship go bad, that Anya will inflict horrible vengeance of the human or demonic kind on Xander and she fears for him. Anya’s biggest concern is losing Xander and she feel s threatened by the relationship between Willow and Xander. She is worried that at some point Willow realize that she still loves Xander and will break-up Xander and Anya just like she did Cordelia. Once the cards are laid upon the table the two of them are able to ‘work things out’ to put it crudely.

Xander emerges from this situation in a much happier triangle in which, the fighting has mostly stopped, and all it cost him was a severe beating and thousands of dollars in damage to the city of Sunnydale.

One interesting aspect of this episode is the glimpses that we catch of how Buffy is dealing with the departure of Riley. In spite of the brave face that she puts on for the rest of the Scoobies, when it appears that Anya and Xander’s relationship is faltering under the mounting pressure she reacts very emotionally with crying and a determination to prevent their relationship from following down the path of her own. Obviously, the impact of Riley’s departure is having a profound impact on Buffy whether she may consciously realize it or not. I think it is a nice way to handle this situation. I don’t think it would be believable to watch Buffy crying and moping over Riley. A reaction similar to what she went through when Angel left would not be true to the nature of their relationship. This was a nice way to show that she does feel a sense of loss without overplaying it.

Checkpoint
Probably the most attractive episode in this grouping for me is Checkpoint. Every time I watch this episode, I have vivid memories of the first time that I watched it. The uncertainty, suspense, desperation followed by the determination, confidence all culminating in one of the biggest fist-pump moments of the series immediately followed by one of the biggest jaw dropping moments.

From a relationship perspective, this episode illustrates a few of the relationships in Buffy’s life and how they are influenced by power. Glory, the Knights of Byzantium, the Watcher’s Council, all three relationships in this episode are presented as people make demands and try to intimidate Buffy. They arrive brash and full of bravado, demanding information, cooperation and describing horrific consequences if Buffy refuses to submit.

Glory is waiting for Buffy in her own home at one point. Glory is looking for the key, it is one of the most suspenseful moments of season 5. Buffy, Dawn and Glory are all in the Summers’ living room arguing about the location of the key. Glory not knowing that the key is standing there in her presence describes for Buffy all the ways that she will punish her, her family and friends if she does not give her the key. In the midst of all of Glory’s threats, there is one thing that strikes Buffy… Glory has yet to actually do anything.

On her return to the Magic Box, the knights of Byzantium intercept Buffy. They have come to Sunnydale to kill Buffy. She has had no previous interactions with the knights, never even heard of them before now. They are after her because of what she knows, and what she has, i.e. the key.

Finally we have the Watcher’s Council. It is easy to hate the Watcher’s Council because they are in fact worse than Glory in my opinion. The Council has come to Sunnydale to put Buffy and her friends through a series of tests. The bait is that they have some information about Glory that might help Buffy protect Dawn. The hook is Giles and their ability to destroy his life on a moments notice. Just like Glory, the Council wants something from Buffy and they arrive brash and full of bravado, demanding information, cooperation and describing horrific consequences if Buffy refuses to submit, sound familiar?

The Council’s actions are so much more reprehensible than Glory’s. Glory wants the key; the fact that Buffy has information about the key is inconsequential in terms of Buffy’s identity. Glory’s threats about killing Buffy’s friends and family are terrifying, but it is nothing personal, Glory needs the key and Buffy is an obstacle in her way. With the Council, it is entirely personal. Their threats are meant not as a means to an end but to inflict personal pain on Buffy. They are willing to withhold vital information that could spell the end of the world over a grudge between the Watcher’s Council and the Slayer. In truth, there is no question in the Council’s mind about whether Buffy’s abilities are sufficient to handle the information they have about Glory, they are abusing their position to try and manipulate not only Buffy, but her friends as well.

All of these relationships experience a reversal in this episode once Buffy realizes that all of the bravado exhibited by these different groups do not come from a position of power but rather a lack of said power. Once Buffy realizes that she is the one in control of each of these situations she’s able to clearly see the appropriate path forward. With Joyce and Dawn, she brings them to the only one capable of keeping them safe, Spike. With the Council, she arrives at the Magic Box with her own list of demands in one of the most empowering scenes in season 5 and the series as a whole, Buffy lays out exactly how things are going to happen as she speaks to Quentin Travers because “I think he’s understanding me.” Scoobies, myself included, all over the world are cheering and pumping their fists in the air in that moment. This marks then end of Buffy’s fear and cowering before the Council and although their interactions are sparse the Council will maintain a modicum of respect for the Slayer from here on out. This revelation is also going to be very empowering for Buffy through the rest of this season and is going to enable her to handle some tough decisions that are coming up. One of the things for me that defines Buffy as a hero is that even after she realizes how her power places her in a position of great influence and leverage; Buffy doesn’t exploit this fact. There are times when Buffy says we are doing it my way because I am the Slayer; but it is never from a place of malice or corruption. I think the ability to have that power, weild it but not let it corrupt you is heroic in and of itself.

In a way that only Joss Whedon can, just when we feel that the ship has been righted and things are progressing forward, we get a gut check before we have even had a chance to catch our breath.

Buffy: Just tell me what kind of demon I'm fighting.
Quentin Travers: Well, that's the thing, you see. Glory isn't a demon.
Buffy: What is she?
Quentin Travers: She's a god.



Thanks, Bryan! Next up is the always-brilliant Lorna Jowett (author of Sex and the Slayer), who last contributed during the I in Team/Goodbye Iowa/This Year’s Girl Week.

“dealing with grown ups now”

Lorna Jowett

“Into the Woods,” “Triangle” and “Checkpoint” work quite nicely as a block of three because “Triangle” offers comic relief between two quite serious episodes. Nikki’s already pointed out Riley’s pathos in this season and here we have its conclusion. It’s definitely the season where the characters start growing up properly. That is, they start realising that life is never going to be easy, that you never really feel like you’ve grown up, and that you’ll always just lurch from one crisis to another. This, I tell my students, is why serial drama is always life-like, however melodramatic, soapy and exaggerated it might be. As Quentin Travers points out in “Checkpoint,” the Scoobies are “dealing with grown ups now” and expected to respond in kind.

Last time I commented for the Rewatch, I said that Buffy and the team had some finding out to do about the Slayer. In this season, events force Buffy to think hard about who she is, and how being Buffy Summers and being the Slayer each affects the other. “Into the Woods” and “Checkpoint” demonstrate that ordinary life is just as important as Slaying and Buffy has to shoulder the burden of family responsibility while Joyce’s illness is diagnosed and treated, take a long hard look at her relationship with Riley (“Into the Woods”), and rediscover her confidence and her sense of self (as Buffy and as the Slayer) in “Checkpoint.”

I confess that when I first watched “Into the Woods” I leaped off the sofa and punched the air shouting YES!! as Riley flew off in the helicopter. (And I’m sure I wasn’t alone). But the episode has some serious moments between Riley and Buffy that equal the emotional family interactions we see. It’s notable that immediately after the opening shot shows us Buffy, Dawn and Riley waiting in the hospital, we see that Giles, Xander and Willow are there too – the Summers family is reinforced by the Scooby family. The pressure about Joyce’s operation is relieved very quickly at the opening of the episode but while Joyce, as Buffy says to Riley, might be “out of the woods” they, and we, are just going into them, as the title promises. I don’t want to get sidetracked into a long discussion of individual episodes here, and I’ve written about Riley in Sex and the Slayer, so I’ll try and pick out a few significant things about “Into the Woods” before moving on.

Spike’s complex feelings for Buffy are a key motivation here in his decision to follow Riley and to tell Buffy about her boyfriend going to get “suck jobs” from vampires (another genius phrase from Whedon and Co), and his selfishness masquerading as altruism maintains the edge of creepy stalker in his obsession. This continues to play out across the following two episodes and beyond. On the other hand, that Spike and Riley actually manage to have a constructive conversation about their feelings for Buffy is testament to Spike’s capacity for connecting with a huge range of different characters. (He does this again in “Checkpoint” in one of my favourite moments where he and Joyce discuss the latest happenings on Passions, a fictional soap opera to rival Twin Peaks’ Invitation to Love). Spike demonstrates the monster in the man and the man in the monster, often almost simultaneously.

While Spike and Riley’s heart-to-heart is rather unexpected, Buffy and Xander’s talk on the same topic shouldn’t be a surprise, but again the writers and actors offers far more than we anticipated. Xander, the Heart of the Scoobies, stands up for Riley and dares to tell Buffy that she is as much at fault in the failure of her relationship as Riley is. It might be a bit of a stretch to imagine Xander and Riley ever being best pals, and most viewers probably welcome the fact that Riley might finally be leaving, yet this conversation with Buffy is still heart wrenching, perhaps because Buffy finally admits that maybe Riley and Xander are right about her holding back emotionally. More growing up. Xander’s description, “scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need,” is of an adult relationship and the pay-off where he goes straight to Anya and tells her how much he loves her brings a lump to my throat every time. It perfectly balances Buffy’s despair as Riley leaves and segues into “Triangle,” which explores the way Xander and Anya’s relationship causes problems for his friendship with Willow, and for the Scoobies more generally.

Thus in the next episode, the togetherness of the Summers women (both daughters teasing their mother; Dawn awkwardly encouraging Buffy to talk about her split with Riley) is set against tensions among the Scoobies, with both Xander and then Tara made uncomfortable by Willow and Anya’s squabbling. As anyone who knows me or who’s read Sex and the Slayer can probably tell, Anya’s one of my favourite Buffy characters and I enjoy how her alien perspective persists despite criticism from others, lasting throughout her character’s time on the show. “Triangle” starts to explore who Anya was alongside who she is now, sketching in more backstory. “Triangle” can de dismissed as a lightweight one-off but nevertheless it ties into ongoing themes in the season, it serves the function of comic relief, and some of its revelations about Anya’s past are revisited much more seriously as the seasons unfold. (I’ll even be back to discuss some of these in another few months). Plus, who wouldn’t want to see a large drunken troll rampage through The Bronze?

If “Into the Woods” is mostly serious emotion, and “Triangle” is farcical comedy, “Checkpoint” combines both. It also features the season’s Big Bad more consistently – welcome back, Glorificus! Glory’s hedonism, love of luxury and hyperfemininity make it tempting to dismiss her as trivial and silly but we can’t. She’s the most powerful Big Bad to date and “Checkpoint” tells us just how powerful: she’s a god. (NB not a goddess, a god; see also Illyria in Angel season 5). And once again Whedon and Co manage to create fabulous supporting characters - or am I the only one with a soft spot for “dear, bumpy minion” Jinx?

Anyway, back on track. “Checkpoint” brings together several of the themes that have been brewing in the previous two episodes and the season so far. Since Joyce’s illness, the Summers’ residence has become a rather different place than the happy home it (mostly) used to be: at the end of “Into the Woods” Buffy comes back to a dark, apparently empty house and in the opener to “Checkpoint” she hurries around tidying up before the Scoobies sit down for their meeting about the Watcher’s Council visit. Growing up again: now Buffy has to take responsibility for making the house a home if she wants it to be one. Her fears about Dawn are also foregrounded here. Buffy refuses to tell the Council that Dawn is the Key, worries that Dawn herself will find out (as she inevitably does), and far worse, that Glory herself will discover it (also inevitable). Both are combined when Buffy arrives home to find Glory in the house waiting for her. How many Big Bads have invaded the Summers’ house? The home in contemporary horror, whether film, TV or fiction, is a dubious haven, open to invasion and penetration of all kinds and we’ve seen the house under attack on Buffy before. But that Glory enters it so easily speaks volumes about her power and about the intimacy of her threat, not just to the Slayer but to Buffy and her family.

The whole scenario with the return of Quentin Travers, the Watcher’s Council “review” and its outcome is immensely satisfying, for all kinds of reasons. Whedon scholars love the line “I wrote my thesis on you,” the death of the practice dummy in the test fight is pure slapstick, and Giles’ line to Travers’ hench-Watchers, “You all stand around and look sombre – Good job!” makes me snigger every time (not least because it shows his adoption of some Americanisms in contrast to the Watchers’ precise and stuffy British English). There are many more classic moments and I bet you all have your own favourites. But the real beauty of the episode is the way it neatly folds together Buffy’s insecurities about her family and her calling, real life and life as the Chosen One. Dawn’s frustration at being left out of the loop by her big sister means that she risks talking with Glory, the Council threatens to deport Giles, Buffy experiences patronising male attitudes both in the university classroom and at “work” from Travers – all speaking to real life rather than just to fantasy. The very pervasiveness of situations that demonstrate how powerless she is to change anything allows Buffy to recognise that in some things she is powerful. Then, typically, the uplifting surge of positive affirmation is cut off at the knees by Travers’ revelation before fade to black and the end credits: Glory is a god. Her power overshadows the journey to the end of this season (spoiler): (and resonates beyond it). The real world also continues to overwhelm Buffy periodically for the rest of season 5: at this point, she’s hardly begun to understand how hard life is.

Thank you, Lorna!

Next week:
5.13 Blood Ties
5.14 Crush
5.15 I Was Made to Love You

Our guest hosts will be Tanya Cochran and Kristen Romanelli. And if you're following along with Angel, watch:

2.13 Happy Anniversary
2.14 The Thin Dead Line
2.15 Reprise

See you next week!

Buffy Rewatch Week 32: Spoiler Forum

And as always, here is the spoiler forum where we can talk about the series (Buffy and Angel) without worrying about spoilers. Only three episodes between us and The Body... when Joyce leaned back on the bed this week I felt a lump welling up in my throat, picturing her lying on the couch, not moving. I'm wondering how the new viewers are going to react...

Discovering Doctor Who: Season 2

I’ve been meaning to write up this blog for a couple of months now, ever since I finished S2 of Doctor Who, which feels like a lifetime ago. I made notes while I was watching it, but many of them had questions in it that have since been answered (since I’m now at the end of S4) so I’ll just talk about the season itself.

It began with Christmas Invasion, the first ep with the new Doctor, although he’s unconscious for most of the ep. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to think of the guy… I LOVED Eccleston, he was my first Doctor, so this Tennant guy was going to have a long way to go to convince me he was any good. When he first awakens and comes striding out, I thought he was a bit much. All pomp and too loud, nattery and excitable. But there was something I liked about him…

And then I watched New Earth, which links back to the S1 continuity through the End of the World episode. We again see the Face of Boe, who says he’ll impart a secret to him (and now I not only know what that secret it, but who the Face of Boe actually is!!). But the true awesome of this episode is Billie Piper playing Cassandra. She is BRILLIANT.

Now, before I go any further, I want to clarify something for the Rose fans out there who very easily get their knickers in a twist when someone says something against their fave companion. In the last rundown of season 1, I said that I liked Rose, but my husband didn’t, and he actually stopped watching S1 (despite being a big Classic Series fan) because of her, saying he’d rather stick a fork in his eye than listen to her blither on. I thought he was being a bit harsh, and I said that while I didn’t love her, I really liked her a lot, and maybe with a second season I’ll like her even more, but that the Doctor outshone her for me. What I did love about her was that she stood in for the viewer as the person through whose eyes we discover the Doctor, and she asks all the questions we need answered.

That is what I said. And then I got a flurry of comments saying, “Oh NIKKI how could you HATE Rose?” Er, I didn’t say that I… “She’s WONDERFUL and the Rose haters are terrible, and I can’t believe that you are one of them!” But… I’m not, I was just saying that… “You know what, Nikki? I COMPLETELY agree with you, I hated her too, she’s just horrible and Billie Piper and can eat dirt for all I…” No, no, I don’t think she should eat dirt, I never said that…

So just to be clear, I never hated Rose. I couldn’t quite get into her at the beginning of the season despite seeing her as our conduit, but I said by the end I liked her a lot more. (It’s my HUSBAND who hated her… attack HIM! Heehee…)

I can safely say that by the end of S2, I adored her. Many of you jumped on me for not embracing her fully, but you had two seasons with her and two Doctors to watch, AND you had the full S3 where he pines after her and makes the viewer love her even more. I didn’t have that when I watched S1, yet I still really liked her.

OK. So. I hope I’ve made it clear now that I’m not a Rose hater. At the end of S2, it’s quite the opposite, actually. I thought she was wonderful.

And now back to New Earth, where Rose is gone and has been taken over by Cassandra. The chemistry between Piper and Tennant is there from the get-go, and his confusion over her acting so strangely is hilarious. (I’ll never forget her looking in a mirror and saying, “Ugh, I’m a CHAV!” and me having to email my best friend, whose parents are British, and say, “What’s a chav?”) ;)

Tooth and Claw is the one where they go to the Torchwood Estate (oooohhh….) and see Queen Victoria. My daughter walked in during this one and I thought, “Okay, everyone also mentioned on the first season rundown that Doctor Who is perfect for 6-year-olds!” She watched, was interested… and then the TV was off by the time that beast thing in the cage came to life. This really isn’t the children’s show the Classic Series is. And she had a lot of questions about the moral quandaries during the show (more stories of my kids watching it with me to come in S3 and S4…)

My fave thing about Tooth and Claw was Rose betting the Doctor that she can get Vicks to say, “We are not amused.”

And on I move to the next episode that’s held in a school and OH MY GOD IT’S GILES!!!! No one told me Anthony Stewart Head was on Doctor Who!!! Now, I have to admit, when I saw him as the demon of some long name that I can’t quite recall (started with a K or something?) I was at once elated and saddened, because since the beginning I’ve been thinking he’d make a terrific Doctor Who, and now obviously he won’t because he’s played a villain.

And yet, he actually wasn’t my favourite part of this episode: Sarah Jane Smith was. Now, again, as y’all know, I’m not one of the ones who choked on their drink and said, “OMG, it’s my favourite companion!!!” In fact, I hadn’t a clue who she was. My husband wandered in during the episode and said, “Hey, it’s K-9!!” And I didn’t know what that was, either. But I can tell all of you who are Classic Series fans that you don’t have to be to have gotten that episode. We know by this point what Rose means to the Doctor and vice versa, but more importantly, what these adventures and this lifestyle means to Rose. If she’s the “chav” who got out of her staid life and was able to go around the world with this mysterious and exciting life, what happens when the Doctor needs to move on? Is she left behind?

The answers to those questions are in this episode, where the beautiful and slightly older Sarah Jane Smith comes face to face with the Doctor after having been left behind so many years ago. He’s wearing a different face, but it’s still the man she would have given her life for. (I saw this episode just a few weeks after the lady playing her passed away suddenly, so it was with some sadness that I saw her for the first time.) The Doctor explains to her how difficult it is staying the same age while others age and slip away, and that his is a very lonely existence. It was like so many of the vampire discussions I’d seen in other shows, and for the first time I realized that despite his aloofness, he’s filled with a lot of pain. Eccleston’s Doctor was a little surly at times, but generally seemed goofy and quite joyful. I got the feeling here that Tennant’s would be a little more emo. Brilliant ep.

The Girl in the Fireplace was next, with its V for Vendetta baddies, and the girl, then woman, in the fireplace. Again, another episode focusing on the idea of the Doctor coming and going from people’s lives and him having such a strong, grave impact on them that when he goes, they can’t stop thinking about him. He, on the other hand, emphasizes that he’s so alone and stays the same while others get older and leave him. So he leaves them before that can happen.

Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel was next: I figured these guys were Classic Series baddies because I remembered seeing one of their heads in that museum where Rose and the other Doctor went earlier in season 1. We’re introduced to the Fringe-like parallel universe where everyone has a doppelganger and whose lives have taken slightly different turns based on different decisions being made (see “Left Turn” in S4). The Cybermen have things downloaded directly into their heads, which I must admit, sounded very convenient to me! Imagine plugging in and getting all seasons of a series put right there! (Yes, in an apocalypse I’d be the first one assimilated by the machines.)

What was interesting is that in this universe, Mickey is Ricky, and in S1 the Doctor INSISTED his name was Ricky no matter what Mickey said. So now we see there’s an insinuation that the Doctor had been to the parallel universe and had met Ricky first, which is why he insisted that was, in fact, his name. And the President looked a lot like the guy who was in that show with Anthony Stewart Head… damn, the show’s name escapes me but it was like a Sex and the City for guys… Manchild! I think that’s what it was. Anyway, I think he was in that, too.

So where do the Cybermen fall in the Whoverse? Are they as important as Daleks? When we first saw the head in the museum in S1 my husband immediately said, “Cybermen!!” They don’t appear to have updated them much, given what I saw in the museum, and I liked that.

The Idiot’s Lantern was a fun episode for me; not the best of the season, but generally outside of the UK, anything that’s set in a different time period tends to be either war- or royalty-related, so it’s nice to get something from the 1950s for a change.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit: I REALLY enjoyed this two-parter. There’s this quiet, dark, scene where the Doctor is dropping down into the pit slowly and talking about faith and science, how he’s gone to the ends of the universe to see things, and maybe he just keeps travelling to see if there’s anything out there left to see… it’s one of my favourite moments of the series. Faith is a new element that seems to have come to the fore in these episodes and recently: do you believe, don’t you, does it matter? The Doctor has seen everything and he has very little faith in anything he can’t see, or so he says, but sometimes his actions belie what he says here.

One question, though: How would Rose know what a black hole is? (Do we just assume the Doctor has told her about them?)

Love & Monsters is a fairly Doctor-less episode, and I understand that Tennant had a contract that allowed him to be away for most of one episode each season? (For a 13-episode season? Seems a bit much… but anyway…) I liked the episode, though, with Moaning Myrtle and the idea of a bunch of people who’ve had Doctor sightings and have joined forces to find more about him, something we haven’t seen much of since the first episode of the New Series, where we saw the websites about the Doctor. Again, playing on the S2 theme of the Doctor coming in and out of people’s lives and touching them deeply.

The next ep, Fear Her, is the one with the little girl and her drawings. I liked this episode a LOT and it was super-creepy… The 2012 Olympics was a nice touch; will it be odd this episode watch post-2012? I mean, if the shot-put competition turns out differently than the Doctor predicted and all… ;)

Army of Ghosts is the first part of the season ender, where people believe that ghosts of the people they’ve loved and lost have come back (at a certain point of the day), not knowing that they’re not ghosts at all, but the Cybermen. Jackie’s back, and there’s a hilarious scene when the Doctor begins running through all of the strange stuff that’s happened on Earth lately and Jackie’s been oblivious to all of it (this will continue to be played to great effect in future seasons with other people who are wilfully ignorant of the goings-on around them. As a one-time fan of EastEnders, the bit on the telly with Peggy screaming at the ghost in the Queen Vic – “I don’t care if you are just the ghost of Den Watts, GET OUT OF MY PUB!!!” – made me scream with laughter. Hahahahahahahahaha!

I LOVED having Mickey back, but not as much as I loved that ending, where Rose, Mickey, and the guy who used to be on EastEnders as the only cute guy in that really annoying family who moved onto the Square and then left right after… are all standing around waiting for the Sphere to open, anticipating Cyberman, only to get… Daleks!! LOVE.

Doomsday is the finale, and the Daleks suddenly become the funniest villains on TV since Spike on Buffy. Apparently coming back in droves has made them super snarky. Highlights include the Cybermen standing in the hall telling the Daleks to identify themselves, and the Daleks countering that the Cybermen identify themselves, and back and forth until Mickey says, “It’s like watching Stephen Hawking go up against a talking clock!” Hahaha! Ooh, ooh, and then when the Dalek shouts at the group to “Cease social interaction!!” Or when the Cybermen say they’re superior, and the Dalek says the only thing they’re superior in is dying?! BRILL.

Like on Buffy, Doctor Who knows how to pull off a thrilling and incredible finale. They’re two for two at the end of this season, and Doomsday was an episode that despite its humour, had a pallor of gloom hanging over it because of the beginning, where Rose’s voiceover says that she died. She doesn’t die, but she’s separated from the Doctor, and it’s heartbreaking. Like so many characters on TV before her, I didn’t know how much I liked her until she was gone, and then I just wanted her back. The Doctor clearly feels more than just a friendship for Rose… it’s a deep, deep love, and you can tell this is one of the hardest goodbyes he’s ever had to say.



By the end of the season, Tennant had proved himself worthy and I loved him. Of course, there were a few things that became a little annoying, like the way he always had his eureka moments. “So if Who is on first… and What is…. No No NO!!! Oh GOD,” head up in the air, arms out, spinning around, “NOW I GET IT!” stops spinning, turns to the person he’s talking to… “WHO IS THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO IS STANDING ON FIRST BASE, DON’T YOU SEE?!” knocks himself in the forehead with his palm “OCH, I can’t believe I didn’t NOTICE this before!"

I may be exaggerating slightly, but this began to irk me by the end of the second season. By the third it became endearing, and by the fourth I would have been sad NOT to have seen it.

I thought Eccleston was a marvel, but Tennant is my new favourite Doctor.

Buffy Rewatch: Week 31

5.7 Fool for Love
5.8 Shadow
5.9 Listening to Fear

And if you’re watching Angel, this week’s eps are:

2.7 Darla
2.8 The Shroud of Rahmon
2.9 The Trial

As I mentioned last week, “Darla” is a parallel episode to “Fool for Love,” where instead of Spike’s backstory we learn a lot more about Darla; the two overlap in the scene with Spike arguing with Angel in Yorkshire, and during the Boxer Rebellion. “The Shroud of Rahmon” is a bit of a throwaway episode, but “The Trial” is frakkin’ brilliant. I hope some of you are trying that other Joss Whedon show!

But in the meantime, let’s get back to Buffy and “Fool for Love,” one of my all-time favourite episodes, and as I also mentioned last week, in my top three episodes of season 5 (alongside “The Body” and “The Gift”). For now we finally see Spike’s backstory, something that was as anticipated among BtVS fans as Ben Linus’s backstory was to Losties. And wow, did it deliver. James Marsters puts in a fantastic performance as William, the bloody awful poet with a penchant for ridiculous rhyming words… and Cecily. We see that Drusilla was actually his sire, not Angel, as stated back in “School Hard,” (prompting Joss Whedon to explain that Angel sired Drusilla, and Dru sired Spike, therefore that makes Angel his sire… no, hon, that makes him his grandsire, but we’ll forgive you the inconsistency), and we see how quickly he devolves from a lovesick puppy into Spike. The thing is, it puts into perspective his feelings for Buffy… because at his heart, Spike will always be a bit of a lovesick puppy. His bravado is mostly an act – where Xander believes he’s the team’s butt monkey, it’s Spike who is the butt monkey of the writers, always making some grandiose speech before tripping or falling into a grave or getting zapped… He feels so deeply, and as we learned back in “Doppelgangland,” a vampire actually has personality traits from their original host, and Spike shows his stripes far more strongly than the others do. Spike isn’t that far removed from William.

And the parallel between the two of them is made obvious when, at the very end, Spike is crushed by Buffy the same way Cecily destroyed him 120 years earlier. With a flick of her hand and a “You’re beneath me,” she leaves him lying in the street, crushed… and crying, just like William had done years earlier. But Spike has learned something about life in the last century, and where William lumbered off to find peace in the arms of a monster, Spike decides to find his revenge on Buffy and to kill her once and for all. But no matter how tough he pretends to be, the lovesick puppy comes right back the moment he finds her lost and crying in the backyard. Spike sitting beside Buffy, awkwardly patting her back while she cries, is one of my favourite moments of the series.

Well, that and punk Spike on the NY subway. Awesomesauce. (And I can’t remember if this is revealed in this episode or later, but the Slayer that he killed was named Nikki. But of course a rockin’ chick from the 70s named Nikki is the source of his amazing leather duster…)

Buffy is crying because she’s received more bad news about Joyce. This week’s triptych of episodes focuses a lot on Joyce’s condition and where it’s coming from, while introducing Glory, the crazily powerful chick in the red lipstick? Who’s Glory? Keep watching….

“Shadow” is a brilliant episode, because of the extreme highs (Glory and her minion) and extreme lows (Buffy listening to the doctor deliver the bad news).

I ADORE Dreg, Glory’s minion. Or should I say… Marshall Flinkman. ;) Even through the makeup and face prosthetic, Kevin Weisman’s brilliance shines (c’mon, Alias fans, hands up!). His overelaborate adjectives are some of my favourite things this season: “Most beauteous and supremely magnificent one…” “most tingly and wonderful Glorificus...” “Forgive me, shiny special one…” “your elaborate marvelousness…” “your terrifically smooth one…” “Your creamy coolness has honored me by speaking my name. Your voice is like a thousand sweet songbirds that…”

Spike adds more humour when we find him sniffing Buffy’s shirt, and Riley continues to feel helpless around Buffy, and is increasingly pushed out of her life. Spike to Riley: “Least I still got the attitude. What have you got, a piercing glance?” Poor Riley. I really, really feel terribly for him. I think despite everything, he’s such a good guy. He wants to be there for her, but no matter how much of a tough guy he is, she’s tougher. Riley Finn was such a useless character in S4 that he’s stuck being the hated Buffy character for life. It’s too bad, because as I’ve been saying from the beginning of S5, his character really changes this year, and Marc Blucas puts in a hell of a performance.

But the real pain in this episode happens with Joyce. “I’ve got a shadow.” Those four words have always struck dread in me… it’s such a scary moment, especially when Joyce’s voice catches and she says unconvincingly, “Just a shadow.” The directing and writing in this episode is brilliant when the doctor delivers the news to Buffy, and the world falls away as Buffy sits alone, the phrase “brain tumour” ringing in her ears. “One out of three people who get this turn out to be just fine.”

The shadow that’s found on Joyce’s CAT scan isn’t the only one in this episode, however, and when Buffy realizes that Dawn isn’t actually her sister, it creates the about-face in her attitude. Her sister is innocent, and Buffy protects the innocent.

“Listening to Fear” isn’t one of my favourite episodes (the snot monster from outer space always makes me think of Mini-Me as a caterpillar stuck in its cocoon…) but it deepens the mystery surrounding Joyce, shows how Buffy is suddenly having to be thrown into the position of mother to both Dawn and Joyce, and how her life has become so complicated it makes high school look like a walk in the park. Just as S5 is Marc Blucas’s season to shine, so too is it Kristine Sutherland’s, who plays Joyce. She’s amazing in this episode – and terrifying when you put yourself in the shoes of Buffy or Dawn – as she moves from vicious to whimpering in a moment.

This week I’m thrilled to bring back Rhonda Wilcox, aka the Mother of Buffy Studies, to discuss our three episodes and put them within one thematic context. Welcome back Rhonda!

“It’s Not About the Moves, Love”: Conversations in Body Language

by Rhonda V. Wilcox

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is arguably the pre-eminent work of language in television; one could spend (and this one has spent) thousands of words praising its, well, words. But the series also makes masterful use of body language—part of the group creativity of great television and film, thanks to both actors and directors (and occasionally writers). The set of episodes we are considering this week are wonderful in various ways: “Fool for Love,” in which we learn that the vicious vampire Spike was in his Victorian life a failed, gentle poet (William), is a game-changer for the series; “Shadow” x-rays the long arc of the danger of Joyce’s life-threatening illness (and the shadow that is her second daughter); and “Listening to Fear” is one of the most frightening episodes of Buffy. Among them, there are far too many choices of subject to write on. Confronted with endless verbal possibilities, I decided to focus on the non-verbal. James Marsters’ Spike is a rich study; but I also want to consider some of the genuine successes of the frequently maligned Marc Blucas’s Riley Finn; and these episodes contain some of the high points in the work of Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers.

My title quotation (“It’s not about the moves, love”) comes from the conversation which takes up much of “Fool for Love,” in which Buffy, having almost been killed by a common (but lucky) vampire, asks Spike to tell her about his two killings of Slayers. As part of his price, he forces her to engage in lengthy interaction: they sit over drinks and hot wings at the Bronze; they play pool; they end up sparring in an alley outside. (So long as there’s no intent to harm her, his anti-violence chip doesn’t pain him.) As he tells her his story, we see moments of his past intercut with their present, starting with 1880s London and moving up through the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900 to New York City (Punk Spike!) in 1977. One of the most vivid scenes in all of the series comes in a remarkable set of cuts back and forth between his 1977 fight with a Slayer in a subway (the forceful train in the dark tunnel here again suggesting sexual symbolism—compare North by Northwest) and his “dance” with Buffy in the here and now. The violence and sexuality are intertwined. “You think we’re dancing?” she asks—and “That’s all we’ve ever done,” he answers. This scene has often been analyzed before, so I’ll restrain myself here. But I will say that the moves of the struggle between Buffy and Spike are a dance, and I dare say few in the audience were as surprised as Buffy when Spike leans in for a kiss. And it’s not when she thrusts him back that the real hurt happens; it’s when she flings the money at his prone body, then stalks off—and, even more, when he forces himself to gather the bills and breaks into tears (first) and then fury. For a few moments, we can believe that he could endure the chip’s pain long enough to shoot her.

But when Spike stalks up to Buffy, sitting unprotected on her back deck as she weeps at the knowledge that her mother must go into the hospital for ominous tests, we see one of the most poignant scenes in the series; and we see once again the series’ remarkable ability to show us both eros and caritas (or agape) love. As Buffy raises her bowed head, Spike sees her tears—and he lowers his gun. (Go ahead—think phallic if you want to.) When he asks her what’s wrong, Buffy says she doesn’t want to talk about it. In place of the Obi-Wan eloquence of the “dance” scenes, Spike now simply asks, “Is there something I can do?”—with that tilt of the head so beloved that it became an online sharing file. Gellar somehow manages to make Buffy’s eyes visibly widen; Marster’s Spike gingerly pats her on the back, and the two sit in silence together as the episode closes. One of the most touching elements of the picture is the way Marsters holds his body in this scene. When the Victorian William expresses his love to a lady who rejects him, he sits with his knees up, shoulders hunched. After Spike is turned, we see (in a scene with Angel, Darla, and Drusilla in Yorkshire in the same year) that not only Spike’s language but also his body language has changed; and the Spike that Buffy meets is the smoothest, most rhythmic of fighters. But in this scene at the end of “Fool for Love,” Spike sits once more with his knees slightly up, a faintly awkward fellow who feels too much. And Buffy sits there with him.

I’ll restrict myself to one more moment of Spike-Buffy body language: Near the end of “Listening to Fear,” Buffy and Spike encounter the horrid bug-man creature that climbs around on ceilings. After Buffy has killed it, Spike reaches his hand down to help her from the floor—and the camera focuses in a close-up of first his hand, then the two hands joined, in the center of the screen. When Riley bursts in to attempt rescue, he finds the two of them still, arms outstretched, hand in hand. And when Riley asks Buffy if she’s all right, she just looks at him for a moment, then runs upstairs to check on her mother and sister. The lack of verbal language and the body language as well seem to be moving us away from a connection with Riley and toward a connection with Spike, complicated though that is—and we don’t have time for that talk (that book?) here.

As for Marc Blucas’s Riley: It may be surprising, but there are visual parallels between Riley and Spike. They both frequently wear leather coats. A number of folks (including me) have written about Spike’s long black leather coat (which he takes from the body of a Slayer in “Fool for Love”) and its gender-crossing, dangerous, sexual representation of his identity. What does it say that Riley’s leather is short and brown instead of long and black? Within this set of episodes, there is another parallel. When, as we see in “Fool for Love,” Drusilla turns Spike, she shows her true vamp visage to him before she does—in contrast to Darla, who tells Angel “Close your eyes.” William/Spike, the man of “imagination,” is startled, but fascinated, as she approaches him. In the next episode, we see Riley allow the approach of a woman he knows is a vampire: He sees the vampire visage of Sandie and allows her to bite him. But while Spike goes through expressions of wonderment, then pain, then sexual ecstasy, Riley’s face seems to express distaste. And as Sandie sucks on him, he stakes her. Like Spike, he is connecting sex and death, but not in the same way; we have no hint that Sandie (unlike Slayers) has a death wish. And the moment is made more haunting for those of us who recall Sandie before she was turned by Vamp Willow in “Doppelgangland.” When, in “Listening to Fear,” we see Riley in a dim, filthy house where humans go to be sucked by vamps, the vamp on his arm seems enthralled by him; she doesn’t just suck, she looks up adoringly. But he sits looking away into the dark, seeming faintly disgusted. If vamp-human interaction represents sexuality, then this scene may suggest something about Riley’s. With Spike’s history in “Fool for Love” and Riley’s dark explorations beginning in “Shadow,” we see both the sexuality and the grimness of vampires in a way that Edward Cullen never does in Twinkle—I mean, Twilight.

While Riley’s secret life of suckage is proceeding, Riley—who no longer has a job—is also trying to maintain his relationship with Buffy, and time and again he offers her his help. In fact, in the scene which opens “Fool for Love,” he saves Buffy from the vamp that almost kills her. But throughout this set of episodes, while Buffy is wounded, while her mother is hospitalized, while she and Dawn try to care for her mom at home—Buffy never once calls Riley. Spike, in fact, in one of his snarkier moments, razzes him about it (which results in Riley flinging him outdoors and Spike calling for his “Blanket! Blanket!”—alas that we don’t have time to discuss Spike’s rehabilitation through humor). When, once more uncalled, Riley shows up at the hospital wearing a turtleneck to cover his neck bites, he and Buffy embrace. But she must be brave for her family. As he reaches out to touch her face, she turns away from him. He cannot touch her tears; and it seems he cannot touch the deepest of her feelings. (Earlier in the season, he’s already told Xander he thinks she doesn’t love him.) As she closes the hospital door in his face without a word or a look, I was reminded of the scene at the end of The Godfather when Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone has the door shut in the face of his “Whitebread” wife (Diane Keaton). These moments of body language are all too resonant. And the episode, like the movie, ends with the almost-but-not-quite-loved character standing outside, apart.

Inside the room is the center of Buffy’s focus: Joyce. In these episodes we get some idea of how Joyce could indeed be the mother of our Slayer. We’ve long known she’s almost unfailingly courteous and kind (a quality too many underestimate, as Dumbledore says). The scenes in which she first plays hostess to Spike are some of the most hilarious and charming in the series. Here that kind of courtesy is transmuted to bravery. When, in a wordless scene, Kristine Sutherland’s Joyce, in her hospital bed, is informed of her brain tumor, she turns her head way from Buffy (and toward us) in her emotional pain for about the space of four seconds; then she makes herself turn back to smile at her daughter; the two smile at each other (and my own tears are welling as I recall the scene). Contrast the sudden verbal incursions of her madness, the anger of “I’d rip it in half and stick it in bed with me.” (I almost wrote the whole essay on that sentence—how many characters can we apply it to!) Her silent smile is not just the embrace of the conventional; it is an attempt to protect her loved ones.

The beginning of “Shadow” presents Joyce’s head in close-up as she lies on her back for the cat scan, the shot of her anxious face foreshadowing the shots in a much more solemn scene later in the season. The stillness here contrasts with the wild flailing of Joyce’s head and the tension of her body as she lies in bed at home madly chattering at the bug-man Queller demon that hangs on the ceiling above her—one of the most horrifying sequences of Buffy, and it is propelled by Sutherland’s acting—not only her voice but that strident (if I may use that term) motion of her body. And at the end, after Dawn (what? Yes, Dawn) has mustered up the courage to strike at the creature and actually save her mother, it is nonetheless Joyce who holds “my baby” and strokes her protectively.

While language may be Buffy’s dominant aesthetic force, the series fortunately has many other powerful elements. Much, much more can be said about the camera work and the music (praises be to Steve Halfyard) and the brilliant use of the actors’ voices in this series. But as these episodes illustrate, the actors’ body language is deeply significant as well—just as that language is in our own lives. And so, in some ways, it is about the moves, love.

Thank you, Rhonda!

Next week:
5.10 Into the Woods
5.11 Triangle
5.12 Checkpoint

We’ll be joined by co-hosts Lorna Jowett, and first-timer Bryan Curry, host of the Hellmouth Podcast. And if you’re watching Angel, next week’s episodes are:

2.10 Reunion
2.11 Redefinition
2.12 Blood Money

See you next week!

Buffy Rewatch Week 31: Spoiler Forum

Lots of stuff to talk about in this week's episode. Tara's warning that a healing spell might do something much worse not only foreshadows what Dawn attempts to bring back in "Forever," but the gang bringing Buffy back. Tara says no; Willow won't.

Spike's backstory is great stuff, and we'll see more of it in further flashbacks. I kept thinking of "Lies My Parents Told Me" throughout the episode. We know that Nikki the Slayer was Robin's mom, and that Spike will ultimately get his kudos for his effulgent poem in the Angel finale... it's getting closer to the end, and more and more things are happening quickly to get us there. I'm looking forward to the first-timers reacting to "The Body" (which is why I'll have it in a week on its own).