#luscious2

Sure!

First, I’ll talk briefly about Eric/Donna/Hyde non-triangle triangle. That storyline was used to illustrate how great Eric is by using Hyde as his villainous foil, and it seems like a non-sequitur to the rest of the show. The aftermath isn’t treated with any depth or consideration for Donna, who is the main injured party in this scenario, not Eric.

In “Halloween” (2x05) and “Eric’s Stash” (2x12), however, Hyde’s betrayal of Eric is the show’s focus. Donna’s experience of having her wishes and boundaries ignored and violated repeatedly by Hyde is never discussed or explored. It needed to be, and Hyde needed to demonstrate true remorse for his treatment of Donna. But That ‘70s Show’s characters and storylines were written inconsistently, so one has to find consistency where one can.

With that part of the show out of the way…

The deeper, more private dynamic of Hyde and Eric’s friendship is first revealed in “Career Day” (1x18). Hyde seeks out Eric at the Formans’ after his mom both invalidates her abuse of him and criticizes him by saying he’s just like the man who abandoned them both: his dad. Hyde is visibly upset , close to tears,when he finds Red in the garage, and asks if “Forman is around”.

When Red says Eric isn’t home, Hyde slides down the side of the Vista Cruiser to the ground, another visible sign of his emotional distress. He admits to Red, “Edna’s riding me again about being just like my dad, so I just took off.”

As we learn very shortly, in the season’s following episodes, “ Hyde rarely expresses his pain to others directly, but this scene in “Career Day” indicates that Hyde probably did share his feelings with Eric when they got too intense. I’d go so far as to say that Eric is the only one who knew just how bad Edna and Bud’s abuse and neglect of him was during his childhood.

I agree (although Xander does end up blaming Buffy, though, it just took him a bit longer than usual)

BUFFY I've gotten us this far.

XANDER But not without a price.

BUFFY Xander—

XANDER I'm trying to see your point here, Buff... but I guess it must be a little bit to my left....  'cause I just don't.

2. What’s your opinion on season 6?

Definitely my least favourite season. Season 6 is not neeeearly as clever as it thinks it is. The reason that it seems so dark is because the metaphors are so sloppy. That’s the word I use to sum up season 6, actually: sloppy. The show has always been dark – just off the top of my head, season 1 alone goes to some dark places: a mother feels her daughter is “wasting her youth” and so she steals her body; ‘The Pack’ is a dark episode so much so that it’s super uncomfortable to watch at times; the child abuse in ‘Nightmares’ etc. Basically, this isn’t groundbreaking.

Okay, so real-life is the Big Bad… I can see how this could be interesting. So much of the conflict feels unnatural and contrived to me, though. It’s like the writers brainstormed everything bad that could happen to a person and tossed it all in even if it would seem OOC. For example, Giles’ reasoning for leaving was ridiculous. Something simple such as needing to leave for important Watcher’s Council duties would’ve sufficed in writing ASH out, but instead this is done in a way to make Buffy’s life even more awful. Giles’ reasons ring untrue to me particularly because he was totally there for Buffy after her mother passes away. Way back in ‘When She Was Bad’ Giles is one of the few to recognise how traumatic her encounter with The Master must have been, especially given that she, y’know, died. And the circumstances in season 6 are much bigger; how is learning that Buffy was in heaven and feeling that she now lives in hell supposed to convince Giles even more that he has to go?? She’s been back for 5 seconds and he already thinks he’s standing in her way? What???

If this season gets its points for being so realistic, then I’m gonna nit-pick. Buffy’s financial issues also feel very contrived and are only there to add to Buffy’s misery; so Buffy comes back from the dead to Tara and Willow living in her dead mother’s room (I get it, this way Dawn doesn’t have to live somewhere else) the point is, there are four people living under this roof – that’s four people using up utilities such as water and hydro, needing twice as many groceries, etc. – and Tara and Willow don’t offer any help financially? What??? Willow could’ve been making some bank given her computer skills, but okay.

How can life be the Big Bad when there are no lasting consequences? This can act as a slight against season 7 as well but season 6 is the one that brings these issues up and the lack of follow-through is just further evidence to me that all of this conflict was contrived. Like, Tara dies and Willow turns world-ending-evil but all she needs to do is chill in a field for a bit? Okay. Spike tries to r*pe Buffy but we’re not gonna talk about it. Xander leaves Anya at the altar but don’t worry, they’ll make up. Money is a huge issue but next season there’ll be like 20 people living under Buffy’s roof, Doublemeat Palace who? Giles leaves but he comes back like three times and realises his “I’m standing in your way” riff was bullshit. Dawn was a klepto for a hot minute, but sneeze and you miss that plot.

And the thing is, there are actual things they could’ve explored with Dawn but the show chose to ignore the whole The Key thing. It’s not like everyone gets their pre-S5 memories back, so everyone still has years worth of fake memories involving Dawn. Dawn could have fears about how everyone she loves only loves her because of fake memories, it’s sad, of course, but that could be a huge worry of hers given her situation.

Then the magic=drugz thing (I can’t even call it a metaphor because it is way too unsubtle) was just… embarrassing to watch lmao. Nothing in the previous seasons indicates that magic could equal drugs; in season 4, it’s used as a way of exploring Willow’s sexuality or something to that extent. Furthermore, I never got the indication that it was the magic Willow was addicted to, but the power. And maybe the knowledge. But anyway, in season 6 we have Willow getting the shakes, hiding magic weed, needing a fix, “I feel so JUICED”

[looks up] Damn, this is getting long! I think I’ve kind of made my point by now lol

To end, though, I believe I saw someone describe season 6 as having an artificial darkness and I think that’s a good way to sum up my feelings.

3. What’s your opinion on season 7?

The thing with season 7 is that it frustrates me because there were ideas that I liked and it had so much – excuse the word choice here – potential to be a great season, but everything about the execution falls flat for me. And when I think of it as a follow-up to season 6, it works even less for me, which I already touched on in the above question.

‘Lessons’ ending on the “going back to the beginning” line seemed so promising to me, and it should’ve been a driving force for the season. From a storytelling perspective, it is bananas to me how little focus the original 4 get both as individuals (too much of Buffy’s plots are consumed by Spike) and as a group. The dynamic of the original 4 is tore down in order to make Buffy’s relationship with Spike more significant, which is incredibly irritating. As much as the “The Earth is definitely doomed” callback makes me go :’) the season really didn’t earn it. To be honest, how did we never get to see the new Sunnydale High’s library?

I think the most glaring problems of season 7 is that there is way too much going on, to the point where there wasn’t much room for character work. The Potentials actually don’t bother me that much, but they’re definitely a problem with the season. If they really wanted to go that route, it would’ve been more effective if there were significantly fewer potentials; the show makes it seem like they’re a dying breed but it sure seemed like there were a lot of potentials. I get that it takes away from the ~empowering images in the finale of young women feeling powerful, but I like the idea of the final battle somehow having all of the past slayers. That way, they wouldn’t need to be introduced until much later in the season which would leave more room for character work. And then of course The First turned out to be pretty lame.

Spike was given WAY too much this season and a lot of his stuff was inconsequential. Compare Spike in season 7 to Angel in season 3; Angel really doesn’t get that much to do, which is fine, because it’s not his show! He has this big moment with Buffy in 3x04 and then in the next two episodes, he gets two brief scenes. He gets one big episode in ‘Amends’ and other than that, his arc/plots are more on the periphery. There’s still plenty of room for the original 4 and other than in ‘Relevations’ the Buffy/Angel relationship isn’t used to take away from her relationships with the Scoobies.

Like I said, though, I like some of the ideas of season 7; I like the idea of going back to beginning, I like the idea of the final season focusing on the Slayer line, I like the idea of a Big Bad that can’t physically harm you, only psychologically. More than anything, season 7 is disappointing to me because I can see a path where it could’ve been so good, but it wasn’t the path taken.

4. What’s your opinion on Riley?

I really don’t mind Riley! His associations with The Initiative probably do not help him gain any clout in the fandom, but even The Initiative arc wasn’t that bad to me until Maggie was killed off. Anyway, back to Riley: I think he’s a nice guy and not in a Nice Guy™ kind of way. He fit in pretty well with the Scoobies – on my first watch, I actually thought he was being introduced as a love interest for Willow haha. He was pretty chill and seemed to make Buffy happy for the most part. He certainly has his moments where I’m like, “really???” even before the mess that happens in season 5, but for the most part, he’s fine.

Onto the mess in season 5… to me, a lot of the conflict was cooked up just because he was being written out and so much of it felt weird to me. Like, “she doesn’t cry as much with you” being taken as a bad thing? I found that really stupid. I get what the show was going for; that Riley was feeling useless, didn’t really have a place of his own without The Initiative, and felt Buffy didn’t love him. I just think it could’ve been done in a much better way. I basically already said this but it seemed like everything that happened was because MB was being written out and not because it was in-character; the writers kind of threw everything at the wall to make Riley terrible and because he already wasn’t a well-received character, it all stuck to the wall.

Anyway, his appearance in season 6 worked well enough for me. So he didn’t get to leave on a sour note.

5. What’s your opinion on Dawn?

I love her! It’s kind of weird to me how people can hate children in fiction so viscerally for essentially being kids, particularly when they’re played by kids and all of the other characters are adults. I don’t know, I just don’t have it in me. So right off the bat, I’m sympathetic to Dawn because just like any kid, she still has a lot of growing to do. Why do you expect her to not be immature, guys?? And then of course her situation makes me feel more sympathetic to her; her sister is out saving the world with her friends and Dawn still needs to be babysat but more importantly: her whole life is a lie. That’s a lot for an adult to deal with, nevermind a 14(? 13? idek) year old. It’d be interesting to see a side-by-side of Dawn at the same age as Buffy and co. during high school because I don’t think the differences would be that striking.

Hi! Thanks for the ask! And I love The Zeppo. It’s such a great episode!

The Zeppo

I legit think this is the funniest episode of the show. It’s comedy gold. 

I know a lot of people criticize this episode due to how unrealistic and uncharacteristically the characters behave but this episode is supposed to be bit of a parody. The characters’ reactions and behaviors are amplified and dramatized on purpose, and it’s one of the reasons why the episode works so well. 

I love how the world is ending, but no one needs Xander! Instead, he is sent on errand runs. Does this ever happen on Buffy? No. But does Xander feel that way? Yes, and that’s the whole point.

This episode is all about Xander and it’s my favorite episode of his. He has some genuine development and proves how much of a badass hero he is. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Xander’s might often keep him out of the line of fire but he is still needed and valuable. As it is, feeling invaluable or overlooked in a common grievance, and Xander is definitely relatable in that regard. 

The Zeppo presents the world through Xander’s eyes so everything is skewered and the characters are almost caricatures of themselves. For example, Buffy and Angel take their melodrama to a whole new telenovela extreme. Also, surely the Scoobies don’t need that many bagels! However, the genius of this episode is in how it highlights the way Xander sees the world while also making it looks hilarious. And really, Xander’s coping mechanism is humor. He hides pain with humor, he sees the world as a comedian, so it makes sense that everything looks so hilarious from his pov. 

This episode is also a good study on bravery. One of Xander’s main strengths is that he is almost foolishly brave. But what is bravery? Is it actively putting your life on the line like the Scoobies do for the greater good? Yes. But it’s also waiting peacefully for some idiot to disarm a bomb without showing your hand.

This episode is 10/10. 

A few notes: 

- Xander chasing the zombies through the school while those demons are running loose is one of the most hilarious scenes ever. 

- Best line: “I like the quiet.”

- The Bangel scene is both accurate and hilarious. 

- The fact that Xander doesn’t tell his friends about what happened is admirable. I would have bragged for sure. 

- I could name all of the funny scenes but I’d be here all day.

- Xander lost his V card. Just saying.