#buffy rewatch

I have a lot of empathy for both Buffy and Giles in this one... On the one hand, I know I'd do exactly what Buffy did. Shit is kept under lock and key until I figure it out, especially when I fear my friends' reactions, even when it's not going to be negative.

On the other hand, Giles deserves to be respected enough to know what's going on, especially when he's suffered both personal abuse and the loss of his partner at the hands of Angelus. The man deserves to be part of Angel's twelve steps. Write the man an apology letter!! Read it with a mediator in the room!!

I know they needed to end this arc and get on to the Mayor, but I wish Gwen had gotten to be more than a plot device. An evil Watcher/anti-Giles has a lot of potential to be spooky.

So much groaning and nail-biting over the affair between Xander and Willow, genuinely one of my least favorite subplots in the entire series - knowing what will happen to Queen C specifically in Lover's Walk next episode is Stressing Me Out.

Side note, the foley work in this was so charming, and I love the recurrence of Fuffy crashing through windows. I think the next time is...during the mayor arc, when Buffy stabs Faith with (?)her own knife(?) to save Angel. "You did it, you killed me."

Season two! For my money, season three is the show at its best in terms of consistency, but season two had the highest highs alongside some real clunkers. You get stuff like “Lie To Me” and “Halloween”… but also “Bad Eggs” and “Go Fish.” The overwrought metaphors of season one intermingled with the pure brilliance of season three. And yet season two is also the home of the Angel/Angelus arc and I’m not sure the show ever topped the emotional torque that supplied. It left its mark not only on Buffy, but provided the basis of the spin-off as well. Let’s get to it…

The most noteworthy thing about this episode to a first-time viewer is that although the possibility of the Master returning is teased, the Anointed One’s evil plan to resurrect him is thwarted. Buffy and her friends stop the ritual and pulverise the Master’s bones. That’s it. He’s gone forever.

This was genuinely significant at a time in which more television shows than not were designed to be formulaic; for everything to be on a never-ending loop which regurgitated plot points, stagnated character development and brought back the dead for the sake of prolonging a story. (Heck, they’re still doing it. “Somehow Palpatine returned,” anyone?)

It’s also an indication that when bad stuff happens – that is, really bad stuff – there are going to be lasting emotional consequences. Buffy died, and that’s not something she can just brush under the rug. What’s more, the writing is going to tie her PTSD to one of the show’s most important themes: that Buffy’s strength is derived from her circle of friends, something no Slayer in history has ever had before. Whenever she tries to push them away, or act like she’s not part of a team, things go south. This is a consistent element of the show right into its final season.

This episode kicks off with Willow and Xander just hanging out and playing the types of games you play when you’re really bored (in this case, “what movie is this quote from?”) It’s nice to see them just wasting time together, as this sort of thing is completely lost in later seasons.

Xander claims he’s gotten over Buffy, who is spending her summer in L.A. with her father, and has apparently sent Willow a couple of postcards. Postcards! Postcards! Remember postcards?? They’re what we had to use to communicate before texting. Every now and then I’m reminded of how long ago this aired, and it’s alarming.

The pair of them have an Almost Kiss, which surprised me a little, probably because it’s still a long way out from their actual hookup in season three. I did vaguely recall it, though I remembered the details wrong. In my memory, they’re interrupted by a vampire. In reality, Xander actually pulls back a few seconds before the vampire makes itself known – yeah, he’s definitely not over Buffy yet.

With or without the vampire, Buffy is here to spoil the moment. Good or bad timing depending on how you feel about the Willow/Xander ship (for me, definitely not a fan, though at this precise point in time, I just want Willow to be happy by getting what she wants). Buffy makes quick work of the vampire and our trio is reunited.

Willow and Xander point out the tree in the cemetery where the Master’s bones were buried… at which point Buffy’s demeanour changes.

Back at the Summers residence, Joyce is talking with Hank. Hank Summers! As played by Dean Butler. I’ve talked in the past about how ill-served this character was, especially when you take into account this conversation with his ex-wife. He clearly noticed that something was wrong with Buffy in L.A., telling Joyce that there was “no connection” between them.

So once again he’s depicted as a caring, observant father… who after this episode, will drop off the face of the earth entirely. And don’t tell me the actor stopped being available, as Dean Butler does turn up again, in dreams and hallucinations and so on. (Sorry, I know I’m probably the only person who cares, but they really dropped the ball on this guy. In season six especially his presence would have been deeply appreciated).

Next day, we get a reintroduction to Sunnydale High and all our most important characters: Cordelia is complaining about having to spend the summer in Tuscany, Principal Snyder is expressing his disgust of teenagers, and Giles is listening painfully until he’s distracted by the approach of Ms Calendar. Flirting commences, though once they run into Buffy, Willow and Xander, talk turns to the sudden appearance of vampires after a very quiet summer.

It’s also a chance to share some exposition: the Master might be dead but thanks to the Hellmouth, Sunnydale is still a hotbed of demonic activity, etc. At this point the opening credits at the bottom of the screen wrap up, and I was surprised to see that Brent Jennings got the And Starring credit for playing Absalom. That’s kind of unusual for an actor I’ve never heard of before, but I checked his IMDB page and wow. He’s done plenty of stuff, both before and after Buffy.

So after Buffy gets perhaps a little too into her training montage, with some subliminal flashes of the Master as she goes, we’re introduced to Brent Jennings’s character. He’s a fire-and-brimstone vampire preacher, which is a favourite type of Whedon’s (see also Andrew Borba and Caleb) who is currently giving some assorted vampires a pep talk. He’s encouraging them to put their faith in the Anointed One, who is also present, along with a vampire girl called Tara (yes, Tara, it says so in the script) and hinting that a new opportunity will present itself soon.

Worth mentioning is that this scene takes place in the abandoned Bric & Broc factory, which will be a staple location throughout this season and even into the next (it’s where Cordelia gets impaled). And no, I have no idea what was manufactured there before it was shut down.

At school the next day Buffy is joined by Willow and Xander in the school lounge, another new location that’ll pop up frequently in the episodes to come. It’s a little strange, as it’s basically just a few coffee tables and chairs just off to the side of the school’s main thoroughfare. Giles arrives with news of what the vampires might be up to, only for the scene to take a dark turn when he comments how easy it was for the Master to kill Buffy the first time.

All at once he grabs her by the neck and throws her down onto one of the coffee tables. Buffy claws at his face and reveals that it’s the Master (fun fact: Mark Metcalf did not return for this brief scene, though he does reprise the Master in flashbacks/alternate worlds later on, both in this show and Angel. It’s actually David Boreanez under that mask, which is a nice bit of meta-foreshadowing on the role he’ll play in this season).

Heh, you can actually tell it's David and not Mark. The shape of his face is completely different.

It’s at this point Buffy wakes up. That was a pretty solid fake-out, all the more harrowing because Willow and Xander are so completely in-character throughout, almost independently of Buffy’s subconscious. The way they give each other a little smile, completely nonchalant over the fact Buffy is being strangled right in front of them means that the audience is drawn into this nightmare as well. (I mean, it’s not like Buffy can see what they’re doing. That unsettling little detail is entirely for our benefit. Also, Giles’s stone-cold expression while he’s strangling Buffy? Terrifying).

It’s also a pretty incisive look at what Buffy fears the most – abandonment and isolation, which also speaks to her greatest strength: having a support system. I don’t think it’s an accident that Giles was the one who transformed into the Master, or that her friends are completely indifferent to the attack.

(One more thing: I know it’s just a dream, but it’s so cute the way Xander and Willow swap food with each other without saying a word; just in silent accord. Again, this rapport went missing in later seasons, which is rather devastating).

Buffy gets out of bed and realizes that Angel is Edward Cullening outside her window. It’s not a social call, as he has some vague warnings about the Anointed One for her (which is really nothing she couldn’t have guessed on her own, so I’m amusing Angel just wanted an excuse to see her).

But one thing he said caught my attention, which is that the Anointed One: “has power over the rest of them.” The shooting script elaborates a little, with: “its source is deep and old.” But what power? How does it work? Where did it come from?

I’m sorry, but if you’ve read my season one posts, you’ll know that the impossibly vague rules surrounding the Anointed One’s existence continue to infuriate me. I know they had to establish him as a viable threat and then get rid of him quickly because the child-actor was growing up, but SO MANY QUESTIONS about him remain.

Angel does whisper: “I missed you,” on the way out the door – er, window, even in the face of Buffy’s cold reception. Aww.

Next day, we’re back at school and the trio are confronted by Cordelia who disparagingly calls them “the Three Musketeers,” which isn’t an insult that has much of an effect. Is Cordelia losing her touch? She’s in the know now, and rather sincerely assures Buffy that she’ll keep her slaying responsibilities a secret – but Buffy rather shortly rebuffs this olive branch.

At the Bronze, Xander has gone back to hypervigilating* over Buffy while ignoring Willow (who tries to recreate the circumstances of their almost-kiss in vain), though Willow is aware that Buffy is acting strangely. I think this is an important character note – Willow is the one that understands Buffy on a behavioural level, though Xander is more likely to understand her on an instinctive one (there’s a good example near the end of this very episode, but we’ll get there).

*Not a real word, but it accurately describes what he’s doing.

There’s a quick scene of Absalom and the Anointed One overseeing a bunch of vampires digging up the Master’s bones, which is pretty rote save for the fact their hands get burned when they touch the consecrated ground. It was established at the start of the episode that Giles poured holy water over the site, so that’s a nice touch.

Buffy arrives at the Bronze and brushes off Angel when he approaches her. She denies being angry at him, but anyone who knows anything about psychology should have figured out long before now that she’s not angry, but afraid. With Cordelia having observed this interaction, and Angel and Willow looking on, Buffy asks Xander to dance.

So we come to the infamous dance, in which Xander gets exactly what he wished for in “Prophecy Girl,” only to not really enjoy it because on some level he knows she’s just using him. After plenty of swaying, grinding and flirting, Buffy leaves him hanging and exits the club. The script says she leaves “a wake of unhappiness behind her,” which pretty much sums it up.

Cordelia follows her onto the street and it makes sense that she’s the one to call Buffy out on her behaviour (in the face of unimaginable trauma, I do love that Cordelia’s advice is simply: “get over it”). But it had to come from Cordelia – she’s the only one removed enough from the situation to simply hand Buffy the truth. And that’s ironic, because she is highly wrapped up in everything that’s going on, she just doesn’t know it yet.

Also, she tries to taunt Buffy by shouting: “I’ll just go see if Angel feels like dancing,” which is pretty funny when you take a peek five years into the future. Right now, Buffy just strides off, oblivious to the fact a vampire has just carted Cordelia away. It’s a well-staged scene, both funny and mildly horrifying.   

In another short scene, Cordelia is taken to the factory and deposited in a small downstairs room, next to an injured and unconscious Ms Calendar. This is followed by Buffy discovering the Master’s empty grave in the cemetery, and I like the implication she was out there because she was taking Cordelia’s advice: trying to get some closure.

The following day, Willow and Xander are attempting to convince Giles that Buffy is possessed (by which they mean that she’s not herself) but Giles, the actual adult, stumbles upon the answer that is both reasonable and correct: PTSD. I’m a little disappointed that he didn’t come to this conclusion long before now, though I suppose he hasn’t interacted with her much this episode. And it does track with the attitude of the Watchers’ Council that nobody would spare much thought to the mental health of the young girls they send out to fight the forces of darkness every night.

At this point Buffy marches up to inform Giles that the Master’s bones are gone (so she didn’t call him the night before?) and gets snappish with Willow… which is a step too far for Xander. Snyder interrupts the mounting argument, and they reconvene in the library after school hours. Which means poor Cordelia and Jenny have been locked in that room all night and the duration of this day so far. Will they have to deal with PTSD after this ordeal?

Giles informs them there is a revival ritual that the vampires might be preparing for, which requires his bones and the blood of those that were closest to him. Buffy takes this to mean herself considering she and the Master literally killed each other. When a note and Cordelia’s necklace are thrown through the window tied to a rock, Buffy prepares to follow the written instructions by heading to the Bronze despite everyone’s protestations that it’s clearly a trap. 

She’s waylaid by Angel on the way and she taunts him to the very brink of him vamping out and taking her up on her offer of a beatdown. Still, he manages to control himself and remind her that she’s got a job to do – and of course, discreetly follows her as she strides away. (This scene was a wee bit pointless, and mostly there to establish that Angel is in the vicinity).

Anyone paying attention will have noticed the incongruity that the vampires have instructed Buffy to go to the Bronze when we know they’ve set up headquarters in the old factory, and things are definitely wrong when she enters the club and spots a figure huddled on the floor. It’s Tara, who looks inordinately amused. Angel questions why there’s only one vampire if this is meant to be a trap for Buffy, which is the natural cue for a smash-cut back to the library, where Giles has just figured out that by “closest to the Master,” the text means closest physically. Even as he utters the words, the vampires move out of the shadows to surround them.

Giles: “It is a trap… it just isn’t for her.”

Buffy finishes tying up Tara and heads back to the school. Xander is unconscious (main character privileges, since there’s really no reason why the vampires wouldn’t have killed him) and Giles and Willow are gone. She tries to find out where they might have been taken, but Xander is having none of it, telling her: “if they hurt Willow I’m gonna kill you.” Together they realize why Willow and Giles were taken, and head back to the Bronze to question their only lead.

(This is a little messy since Buffy has now gone from the school to the Bronze, then back to the school, and now back to the Bronze for the second time. Surely it would have been easier for Angel to knock out Tara and simply carry her to the school with Buffy – though perhaps that would have been one too many knock-outs for a single episode).

In a scene that’s nicely reminiscent of Angel and Xander flanking Buffy at the end of last season, the boys watch as Buffy continues to embrace her dark side by dropping her crucifix into Tara’s mouth, clamping it shut with her hands until she’s ready to talk. Which… hopefully she still can after this particular torture method.

Apparently so, as we cut to the factory where the vampires are preparing their sacrifices for the resurrection of the Master, his bones laid out on a gurney below the bodies of Jenny, Cordelia, Giles and Willow hanging above him on meat-hooks. The ritual begins, but Buffy, Xander and Angel are watching from the catwalk above. They form a quick plan (Buffy will distract the vampires while Angel and Xander get the others out of there) and pull it off fairly effectively. Honestly, I’m not that good – or that interested – in describing fight scenes, so all you need to know is that Buffy works out her issues on the vampires while her friends are rescued.

Giles, Jenny, Willow and Cordelia gradually regain consciousness, just in time for the Anointed One to make his escape and Absalom to attack Buffy with a sledgehammer. She makes short work of him with a flaming torch, and he swiftly burns to death. Buffy claims the sledgehammer for herself, and this important exchange takes place between Willow and Xander:

Willow: “It’s over.”

Xander: “No, it’s not.”

It’s interesting because once again Xander grasps what’s going on in Buffy’s head before Willow does, who is more attuned to what Buffy is feeling (most of the time). It reminds me of the end of “Nightmares” in which Xander quietly says: “I get it,” when Buffy leads Billy to unmask his assailant – again, before Willow fully grasped what was happening. Willow gets the emotions, Xander gets the instincts. It’s an intriguing little contrast between them in regards to understanding Buffy.

To music that sounds suspiciously like Angel and Buffy’s love theme, Buffy pulverizes the Master’s bones with the sledgehammer before collapsing into Angel’s arms in tears. She’s only sixteen, after all.

The following day, we get a bit of a funny moment between Cordelia and Ms Calendar, in which the former is seemingly talking about what they’ve just gone through, only to reveal that she’s just complaining about the stains in her clothing. So, after an entire episode about Buffy grappling with overwhelming trauma, it would appear that Cordelia (not to mention everyone else) is just going to shrug off their ordeal without a second thought. I suppose there’s not enough time to deal with everyone’s issues.

Meanwhile, Buffy is with Giles, worrying about how Willow and Xander will react to her in the proverbial (and literal) morning after. He offers her some badly phrased comfort, and she goes to join her friends in her first class… where they gently welcome her and engage in some meaningless chatter. Because of course they forgive her. They always do, always will –between the pair of them they grasp what’s doing and what it costs her. Buffy smiles, and visibly relaxes into her chair…

There have been so many fandom arguments across the years over which character (usually which love interest) “gets” Buffy the best, but the answer is: these guys. Because they’re her peers, they know she’s not perfect, and they can give her a sense of security and normality and stability that nobody else can manage.  Love means never having to say you’re sorry. (I mean, it does – but I love that in this case, it really doesn’t).

This is quite possibly one of my favourite scenes in the entire show; a reminder that its heart lies with these three characters: a trio of misfits taking on the world by themselves. I wish the episode had ended with it, though we get one brief stinger before the end: the Anointed One looks around the debris left in the factory and remarks: “I hate that girl.”

That’s our premiere episode for season two, and it’s a pretty good one. It ties up some loose ends left in “Prophecy Girl” (namely, that the Anointed One is still out there) and yet surprises us by providing assurance that the Master is not only really dead, but really most sincerely dead. Like I mentioned before, back in the nineties it would have been easy to assume that they’d simply find a way to bring back this character and start the whole conflict all over again.

But they didn’t! It’s onwards to bigger and better villains.

Along with the Master’s really-dead death, the show will never utilize prophecies again either, which is clever in an in-universe way. The Pergamum Codex prophesied Buffy’s death, and she did in fact die just as the text described. Of course, Xander resuscitated her, but the prophecy still stands as fulfilled. As far as whoever wrote it is concerned, the Slayer died permanently… so of course, there’s never going to be any more prophecies about her, is there? There’s no reason for Buffy to be “seen” in any other premonition of the future.

On a meta-level, prophecies have always been an easy narrative shortcut to get characters to do things. But since Buffy is a Slayer who breaks the rules, she’s now free of the trappings of fate and can start doing things her own way (I could argue this theme carries her all the way through the show to its very final episode, in which she finds a way to circumvent the rules of Slayer-hood itself).

Miscellaneous Observations:

Every season of Buffy has what’s called a Starter Villain (last season it was Luke, next season it’ll be Ken) and unfortunately Absalom is perhaps the show’s most forgettable. Nothing wrong with the performance, and Brent Jennings provides a rare sighting of a Black person in southern California, but… well, I’d pretty much forgotten the character even existed.

This episode contained a ritual to resurrect a vampire – and even though it failed here, we do know that Wolfram and Hart will successfully bring back Darla a few years later. My question is: do they use the ritual featured here? I can’t remember, but I’m looking forward to finding out (however long that may take).

Speaking of, it was a fun little twist that the “close proximity” part of the ritual didn’t refer to any sort of mental or spiritual bond between killer and victim, but instead the very prosaic “people who were standing nearby when it happened.”

I read the shooting script, and what you see here is pretty much everything that was written – except for a brief scene in the car with Joyce, in which mother and daughter are clearly not able to communicate properly. There’s also more dialogue between Joyce and Hank in their scene together, in which the latter jokes: “when she was burning down gyms, at least I knew what to say to her. Don’t burn down gyms.”

I spotted a razorback poster in the Sunnydale High hallway, which is a nice bit of continuity.

At one point Buffy tells Angel: “being stalked isn’t really a big turn-on for girls.” Oh honey. There are plenty of girls out there who would inexplicably LOVE to be stalked by an obsessed vampire.

Was it just me, or were the Master’s bones WAY too clean? Did the other vampires boil them in water before laying them out or something?

Could I make the argument that this episode is season two in miniature? Jenny Calendar is kidnapped, Buffy challenges Angel to a fight, David Boreanez (as the Master) attacks Buffy, there’s use of a “trap” sprung in the school library in which isn’t actually for Buffy… it’ s a bit of a stretch, but it’s all there in broad strokes. Even Joyce stating that she just wants Buffy to make it through the school year is arguably foreshadowing… as she technically doesn’t.

As well as Buffy coming to terms with her near-death experience, this is also an important episode for Xander. It’s clear from the beginning of the episode that he’s still hung-up on Buffy. He pulls back from the almost-kiss with Willow and then ignores her attempt to recreate it later at the Bronze. He doesn’t register that Buffy has been unreasonably mean to Cordelia (though Willow does). And yet he knows something isn’t right when she dances with him at the Bronze. By the time the credits roll, there hasn’t been a complete turnaround – but something understated has happened: Buffy has fallen off the pedestal he put her on.

For the first time Buffy screws up badly, and Xander calls her out on it. It’s definitely not an accident that this confrontation is brought about first by her snapping at Willow, and then by Willow’s kidnapping, and Xander is right when he tells her: “If you'd worked with us for five seconds, you coulda stopped this.” It’s followed swiftly by him saying: “if they hurt Willow, I’ll kill you,” which indicates that his priorities have subtly shifted from his crush to his best friend – from his idealized expectations of Buffy to the reality of his lifelong love for Willow.

That’s an important step for him, and the emotional journey he takes throughout this episode in regards to the two most important women in his life is clearly albeit subtly done.

Now, to be clear, ninety-nine percent of the time I am always on Buffy’s side, and in this case I can totally understand why she’s behaving the way she is. She’s jumpy and traumatized and lashing out at people who can’t grasp what she went through. But that doesn’t entirely let her off the hook for not simply telling her support system how she was feeling, and letting them help her. That’s what they’re for!

(Don’t worry, I will be much more frustrated with Willow and Xander at the start of season three, in which the exact same thing happens to Buffy, and they still can’t figure out what’s wrong with her).

In all, it was an important reiteration of the theme that Buffy can’t do this by herself: the fact that she has friends is what’s keeping her alive. In fact, Xander flat-out tells her that: “you can’t do this alone,” during the course of the episode, a poignant line that Buffy herself will repeat to Giles much later on: “I can’t do this alone.” That it ends with the trio in class together, mindlessly talking about nothing in particular, is the perfect balm for everything that’s just happened.

Also, David Boreanez is now in the opening credits. In the good old days, when you watched an episode of television every week and honestly had no idea what was coming next, I bet people were pretty exited about seeing more of Angel…

Best Line: Willow’s sassy rejoinder to Buffy: “What about the rest of the note?” Buffy: “What rest of the note?” Willow: “The part that says PS, this is a trap.”

Best Scene: Well, I’ve already gushed about that second-to-last scene, in which Willow and Xander just casually engage Buffy in meaningless chatter, but it really does capture the heart of the show in its entirety. They’re at her side at the end of this episode, and they’ll still be flanking her six seasons later at the conclusion of the final one.

Best Subversion: The episode floats the possibility that the Master will return and Buffy will have to go through with fighting and killing him all over again. They didn’t go through with it – but they could have, and it’s to their credit they instead decided to explore the emotional toll the last season finale took on Buffy. It demonstrates that things won’t be repeated – but they won’t be disregarded either.

Neither do they immediate introduce a brand new Big Bad for the season. We might have assumed it would be Absalom, but he’s taken care of before the end credits. We might just have easily assumed it would be the Anointed One, but… well, we’ll get there soon enough. They play their cards magnificently in this respect.

Also, I am kind of fond of the fact that everyone assumed the requirement of the ritual had to do with how metaphysically close Buffy and the Master were at the time of his death… when instead it’s the randos who were just milling around downstairs when he got impaled that were the key to this arcane ritual. It’s an understated subversion, but a neat one.

Best Reaction Shot: Buffy catching the rock thrown through the library window without even flinching.

Death Toll: Vampire in the graveyard, Tara the vampire (not onscreen, but we can safely assume Buffy killed her), four vampires in the factory, Absalom.