"Ted" [2x11] Review by Mikelangelo "MikeJer" Marinaro Posted by MikeJer on October 25, 2005 Writer: David Greenwalt and Joss WhedonDirector: Bruce Seth Green Quick Links Spoiler Warning! This is a retrospective review and may contain spoilers from anywhere in the series. Read at your own peril. Review This is a difficult episode to review because it is literally a perfect episode (and would have scored a 100) until Ted reactivated and came back to attack Buffy. It's such a shame that the ending completely negates all the powerful stuff that was being covered before it. It turns it into an almost meaningless and mediocre stand-alone episode. If Buffy had really killed a human and the rest of the episode continued to deal with the fallout of that, I would have been one happy camper. What we got instead is a grave disappointment, but one that still has some value. It all begins with Buffy coming home and finding this 'guy' making out with her mother. She has an amusing reaction to this sight. I really like seeing more of Joyce's social life. She keeps her affairs to herself most of the time, but I like them trying to give her character some more depth. Anyway, Buffy doesn't like seeing her mom dating someone at all and decides to take out her anger and fear on an unsuspecting vampire, who she beats to a bloody pulp. This behavior is reminiscent of Faith when she arrives in "Faith, Hope, and Trick" (3x03). She beats a vampire to a bloody pulp as well and Buffy knows, from her experience here, that there's something bothering Faith. I really like this kind of character development. A little later we see Buffy and Angel getting on with the smoochies. Angel also asks her an important question. He asks, "Do you have somebody else in mind? There's a guy out there that would satisfy you?" referring to her mother's men. She answers, "My dad?" I really feel sorry for Buffy because she really misses her dad, regardless of the reason why her parents divorced. Sniff, sniff. I really enjoyed the minature golf scene. It's really nice to see the group and Joyce all together, and in daylight for once. I also love how creepy the atmosphere turns when Ted catches Buffy cheating and threatens to slap her face. This leads to the rough dinner scene where Buffy finds out that Ted might ask her mom to marry him soon. She is disgusted and says that if it happened she'd feel like killing herself. Wow. I feel Buffy acted very appropiate under the circumstances though. All of that is setup for the big bedroom diary scene where Ted threatens to show Buffy's mom her diary. He hits her which enables her to lay the ass kicking on him. She takes it to far considering she thinks he's human, though, and appears to have killed him. 'Killing' Ted shocks the shit out of Buffy, and appropiately so. In the following police 'interrogation' scene we discover what's underneath Buffy's Slayer exterior: a very scared girl. I love how this shows that when it comes to emotional and personal issues Buffy is just as heartbroken and weak as any teen would be if placed in that situation. This whole sequence of events leads to the wonderful bout of acting by SMG when she tells her mom, "I didn't mean to do it," and starts to break down in tears. This little scene is powerful. SMG's acting is really great all episode long as well. In fact, all the acting in this episode is spot on and believable, including the guest star John Ritter. Now, if the episode had stayed on this course it would have been a home run, but instead things go back to being predictable when Ted is discovered to be a robot who marries women then locks them in a closet in his house until they die. This plot development ruined what could have been a powerful milestone for the series. Buffy gets off the hook for killing a human which completely undermines the episode's potency. It's a real shame they didn't take advantage of this opportunity. So now we're back into plot mediocrity territory and there's still some problems. Buffy once again gets knocked out incredibly easily by someone. Sigh. Also, there is no way anyone in the 50's could construct a robot with that kind of sophistication. It'd be stretching it to have a plot where there's a robot like that made today. The episode ends with Buffy saving the day and actually killing robot Ted. Yawn. This is a solid episode, but my disappointment over the squashed potential kind of looms heavily above the rest of the stuff in here. To be fair, though, it's still very entertaining and very well acted. Minor Pros/Cons (+/-)
Foreshadowing
Quotes BUFFY:No, not thinking. Having a lot of happy non-thoughts.BUFFY:Vampires are creeps. GILES:Yes, that's why one slays them. BUFFY:I mean, people are perfectly happy getting along, and then vampires come, and they run around and they kill people, and they take over your whole house, they start making these stupid little mini pizzas, and everyone's like, 'I like your mini pizzas,' but I'm telling you, I am... WILLOW:(giggles) He's a clean clown! (gets stares from the others) I have my own fun... TED:Buffy, your mother and I are taking it one step at a time. And if things go the way I hope, maybe someday soon I just might ask her to tie the knot. How would you feel about that? BUFFY:I'd feel like killing myself. GILES:No, no, really, I, uh, I don't think it went in too deep. The... advantages of layers of tweed. Better than kevlar.
Screencaps
Comments (48) All Comments | Link2 | MrBMay 12, 2007 mikejer: "If Buffy had really killed a human and the rest of the episode continued to deal with the fallout of that, I would have been one happy camper." This is a problem of seeing the show after the fact. During the original run, it had not built the foundation to handle this kind of issue yet. This is before Surprise/Innocence, Passions, Becoming 1&2, Bad Girls/Consequences, The Body, The Gift, all of sesaon 6, Selfless, etc. Without any build-up, in a stand-alone episode, taking on "real" death would have been very difficult to say the least. All Comments | Link3 | MikeJer | CREATOR/ADMINMay 12, 2007 While that may be true, it doesn't make this episode feel like anything less than a cheat at the end. I think it's best to not go to the "I killed a human" place unless one's willing to go all the way with it. Just imo, of course. :) All Comments | Link4 | MrBMay 13, 2007 I agree with you on the cheat. It felt like that in first run. They killed a "guy" , then the basically said "only kidding." It seemed like they weren't *quite* ready to do the dark stuff completely yet. Like with "Lie to Me" and "Dark Ages", they were still playing around the edges with this, and not dealing with it head on. That would change, though, wouldn't it? All Comments | Link5 | BarbaraJul 9, 2007 I remember watching this for the first time and crying along with Buffy because she thought she had killed a man. It was during the police interrogation and also the scene with her, Xander and Willow in school. Also the one when Joyce didn't want to talk about it. Anyway, even though Ted was a machine, I don't see how it doesn't creat an even bigger gap in the mom and daughter relationship. I mean, maybe it's just me, but if my mom was going out with someone and he threatened to hit me and I told my mom and she didn't believe me that would put a serious dent in our relationship. Maybe it was because Buffy knew she was being drugged, I don't know. Also, I think the reason he was able to knock her out is either one of two reasons...or it could be both. If you watch closely Buffy hadn't been eating anything because she didn't want to eat anything Ted had cooked. And if you remember when she finds her mom dead and then at the hospital with Dawn and the vampire, she had a hard time fighting, because she was tired and had been grieving. Buffy was definitly grieving in this episode. All Comments | Link6 | LibMaxAug 10, 2007 Re: Buffy getting knocked out by Ted. Ted's a robot. It's not necessarily valid to assume that he's no stronger than a human man of the same size. He hadn't demonstrated any extraordinary strength previously, but he hadn't needed to. Both April (I Was Made To Love You) and the Buffybot were as strong as or stronger than Buffy herself. Re: the sophistication of the robot Ted. Well, I guess in a show about vampires and witches and such, they hoped we would suspend our disbelief. It might help to think of it as techno-magic, or "Weird Science." All Comments | Link7 | LibMaxAug 10, 2007 Re: that cheating plot. There's no getting around the fact that the revelation that Ted is a robot, and therefore Buffy didn't really kill anybody, feels like a copout. But it's a tricky situation. I think they were right to raise the issue of how dangerous a Slayer can be and how bad things can get if she lets her temper get the better of her. But, as others have pointed out, it would practically have had to be the season arc (and a real bummer of a season arc) if they had gone through with it and let real human Ted be really dead. There's no way they could have handled a story twist like that in a single episode, or even a two-parter. Frankly, I'm not sure it could ever have been redeemed at all. Faith ultimately had to go to jail for a couple of years, although she did kill an additional person (two, if you count the Box of Gavrok courier). Wouldn't the rest of BTVS have been about Buffy's atonement - kind of like Angel (the series)? Is that what we wanted? So then, should they have done it at all? Should they have raised the issue? I think it was important that they did. The problem I have with When She Was Bad is that they hinted around at how bad a reckless, selfish, self-indulgent slayer might be without really showing us what they meant. Ted showed us what they meant. And it gave Buffy something important to think about, another reason to behave herself besides staying in the good graces of Giles and her mother and keeping her student record clean (increasingly hopeless under the reign of Snyder). Of course they addressed all these issues in Season Three with Faith. But I think that would have been an awful cop-out too, if Buffy had never got her hands dirty at all. If it had been as simple as good-Slayer, bad-Slayer. I was constantly reminded of Ted throughout the Season Three Faith arc. Some have complained that Buffy should have told Faith about Ted, and she should have, but I don't think it's a writing gaffe that she didn't. I think Buffy was never quite willing to lower herself that much in her relationship with Faith. She held that back, for reasons that changed as her relationship with Faith changed. I always felt that that omission in particular was a big part of the sense she had and we had that she had failed Faith, that she had let her go bad when she might have done more to stop it. Of course, that's all subtext, but I think it's there nevertheless. YMMV. All Comments | Link8 | AustinAug 20, 2007 I am unsure of how they would have handled it if Ted had really been killed. Giles seems ready to forgive Buffy on account that the slayer does so much fighting that there is sure to be an accident sooner or later, and the council would no doubt have been void of any objections. The rest of the characters confound me, I find it interesting that Joyce is ready to defend Buffy from that law, evern after she killed her boyfriend. All Comments | Link9 | buffyholicOct 13, 2007 What realy gets me in this episode is the fact that Joyce doesn´t believe Buffy (her own daughter). Sure she was being drugged but still, that hurts Buffy a lot. Believing in Ted and not her daughter is really sad and a little unnerving. All Comments | Link10 | gabrielleabelleNov 6, 2007 Likewise, when I first watched this episode I felt gypped by the 4th act (when it's revealed that Ted's a robot). It felt like (and was) a copout for the drama that was going on. But, LibMax brings up very good reasons why it had to be done that way. This was supposed to be a one-off episode. They obviously wanted to tiptoe in and explore some of these deeper issues without having to deal with the aftermath throughout the rest of the season (probably for the best). All Comments | Link11 | BillFeb 9, 2008 The main reason this episode falls flat for me, and the entire Faith season 3 storyline never really pulls me in is the writers inability to follow their own rules. They make all these speeches in commentaries and interviews about how their heroes never kill humans without facing consequences. Yet in episodes before this Buffy has killed a human, she will kill humans later on, Willow kills a human, as does Giles, and so does Angel (while still with a soul). They all kill humans and face little to no consequences for their actions, yet all of a sudden here and in season 3 with Faith we are supposed to completely forget about all of those instances and buy that this is such a serious transgression. The writers are usually great, but in regards to this issue they dropped the ball completely, in many instances. All Comments | Link12 | MikeJer | CREATOR/ADMINFeb 9, 2008 Bill, when did Buffy unequivocally kill a human in episodes before this? The fact that Willow, Giles, and Angel kill humans after S3 is a completely different story and is entirely consistent with the growth/personality of those characters. The only character in the series that truly has a problem killing humans is Buffy. It doesn't really matter what the writers say in commentaries, even though that sometimes helps color are opinion. What matters is what we see on screen. Willow killing a human was a huge deal and there was much anguish and discussion of trying to stop her from doing it (see "Villains"). Giles killing Ben to rid the world of Glory entirely fits his character as well. Same goes for the instances where Angel kills humans on his own show. All these people are not Buffy -- she's the only one with a huge problem killing humans, but even she starts to bend on that as she grows up and her view of the world begins to mature and change. All in all, I really don't see any inconsistency here. All Comments | Link13 | BillFeb 9, 2008 Buffy killed the zoo keeper in The Pack, and this was just glossed over. Whether he was possessed by an animal spirit or not is inconsequential, because he was still a human and Buffy threw him into the hyena cage where he was killed. Yes, the Hyena's may have killed him, but it was Buffy's actions that led to his death. There were further instances post-Ted, and I will revisit this topic when I get to those because I can't remember the specifics of those cases, but as I am currently mid-season 2 I will talk about them when I get to them. Whether or not the actions of the characters fits their characters is not the point. The writers early on established the thematic that the heroes don't take human life without their being some sort of serious consequence. Consequences are the key, they crafted an entire storyline about one character needing to face the consequences for killing a human, yet in all other instances they gloss over and the hero characters face zero consequences whatsoever. Willow would be the perfect example, because trying to stop her from committing the act has nothing to do with her facing consequences for when she actually finishes the act. I agree about the writers opinions not being the end all and be all, I am very much of the "interpretation of the art is all that matters" mindset. But, in this case I believe the writers comments combined with the very clear thematic they put forth during the show are inconsistent with what we actually see on screen. All Comments | Link14 | kittyJul 24, 2008 I agree with Bill that Buffy did throw the zookeeper to hyena cage, there was no way he could have survived and Buffy knew it when she was throwing him to that direction. The zookeeper was a bad guy (and possessed) but still a guy. He shouldn't have been thrown to the hyena cage, he should have been knocked unconcious. Buffy didn't even contemplate on that afterwards, don't you think she should have? On regards of Ted - I agree with those who think it would have been "overkill" to make him human. Buffy would have had to deal with this the rest of S2 (and onwards). But what I think is that this period where she thought she really had killed a human with her slayer force would have had to make her contemplate on the issue and maybe have some impact on how she treated Faith. And when we compare The Pack with Ted there there is certain inconsistency here. She shouldn't have thrown the zookeeper to the hyena cage or she should have addressed the issue afterwards. All Comments | Link15 | LeeluFeb 12, 2009 @Latoya: I don't think, at this point, that Buffy HAD been in an asylum. That is something I believe only happened after Dawn. All of her memories after Dawn were either tweaked to include Dawn, or made up completely. And, personally, I think the asylum thing was one that was one of the latter... (seeing how long ago Latoya made that comment, she probably won't ever read this, but meh. I wanted to say it. haha) All Comments | Link16 | EmilyFeb 17, 2009 Leelu, I think that even though the memory was tweaked (not necessarily because of Dawn, but just because the writers stuck it in), it still fits this plot where Buffy freaks out when Ted threatens to tell Joyce about the diary. There's continuity even without the writers realizing it, which is kinda cool. I think it's a little odd that Joyce didn't believe Buffy about Ted's threat. Also, no policeman would ever say, "It doesn't look like he hit you very hard," would they? Once a kid cries abuse, then how could he question that? Sometimes there is no physical evidence, so I find that this line was unrealistic and only further annoyed me in terms of no one believing Buffy. (And the cop didn't even have the drugged cookies to blame it on!) I just wanted to point out how well they did the part where Buffy hit him with the skillet- it's like killing a warrior with his own sword lol. Meaning she didn't hit him with a lamp or a chair, but specifically with a skillet, which is his tool. There's a foreshadow here, where Buffy tells Willow, "Please tell me you didn't keep any parts." Willow ends up doing the same thing with the BuffyBot, and it ends up saving them all. All in all, I'm not a fan of this episode, except for the parts without Ted, like Giles and Jenny patrolling, the gang looking for clues on their own, stuff like that. (And of course, the part with Angel, but that's a given.) All Comments | Link17 | durunFeb 19, 2009 For what it's worth, there is a Buffy comic (included in the first Omnibus) showing her (pre-Dawn) time in an asylum. The issue is set between the events in the movie and the start of Season 1. All Comments | Link18 | SamMar 7, 2009 Frankly, I love this episode. It's a brilliant, witty riff on children's fears of their single parent finding someone new in their life to make them happy. Kids sometimes feel like either they are getting replaced or their other parent is, and it makes them unhappy. Rightfully so, too. They don't necessarily feel so welcoming of this stranger as suddenly being part of the family. So the revelation that Ted is actually a robot ends up being hilarious. It's just another ingenious way Joss Whedon comments on kids' inability to understand complicated adult relationships. Oh, and considering how much Buffy suffers over the course of the series, I don't mind the fact that she occasionally gets let off the hook--in fact, it's kind of a relief--and in this case it turned out not to be a mistake at all. All Comments | Link19 | LeeluMar 7, 2009 I've got that Omnibus, and I thought they mentioned Dawn in the asylum story, but I could be confusing it with bits of "Normal Again." I'll have to re-read it. All Comments | Link20 | NixMar 7, 2009 One question. Ted refers to a perfect way of making pizza: '... after you bake it you fry it in herbs and olive oil'. *Fry* it? Frying a *pizza*? Is this appalling idea just because he's an evil robot, or are US pizzas really fried? (If so, wow, no wonder there's an epidemic of obesity. Not even in the UK, renowned for crimes against cookery the world over, do we do that.) All Comments | Link21 | WorldWithoutShrimpMar 7, 2009 I gotta say, I've lived in the US for my whole life, and I've never seen a fried pizza. Probably for the best... :-D All Comments | Link22 | SeleneJul 6, 2009 This episode in about the only time I didn't like Joyce. I know she was hurting because her boyfriend got killed by her daughter (though exactly how long had they been dating? It couldn't have been too very long or Buffy would have noticed something so just how attached could she have been to him?) but her daughter, the one who accidentally killed him was suffering, too, and she had no time to comfort her. That was just more selfish than I could believe of Joyce. All Comments | Link24 | TashAug 4, 2009 I think this was the best way to end this episode. Season 2 of Buffy was nowhere near ready for the various issues she would have had to deal with if Ted had been real. For starters - Buffy killing her mother's boyfriend? We would never have had 'The Gift' episode - because the mother/daugther dynamic would have been radically changed. Also for a guy - you do extremely well in these reviews about a female heroine. All Comments | Link25 | faith'sboytoyApr 25, 2010 @ 3:26am Although I'm extremely late to the party I feel a need to defend Joyce against some of the above comments. From the outside looking in Buffy is a hardcore juvenile delinquent . She is always getting into fights, always skipping class, always sneaking out her room to hangout all hours of the night and she set her previous school on fire. It is hardly a stretch to think that a girl like this would lie to break up her mother and her new boyfriend. And I would need some time to process if had to deal with a seriously violence prone daughter who had just accidently killed my boyfriend. All Comments | Link26 | LaurenApr 29, 2010 @ 4:39pm It can be INCREDIBLY frustrating to listen to Joyce complain about Buffy as a daughter because she doesn't understand. However, Joyce handles Buffy's secret the complete wrong way (first the insane asylum and then kicking her out). Up until this point though, you cannot blame her for being wary of the junvenile deliquent violence prone duaghter. All Comments | Link27 | G1000May 14, 2010 @ 5:54am "Suprise/Innocence" had better be worth it. This is my first time watching the show, and while there have been a few solid to good episodes ("Angel", "School Hard", "Lie to Me", etc..), there have been even more dreadful ones ("Inca Mummy Girl", "Teacher's Pet", "The Pack", and so on). Keeping my fingers crossed! As for this one, what a dreadful ending after such a great build-up. All Comments | Link28 | nathan.taurusAug 13, 2010 @ 9:47pm R.I.P John Ritter. The Good: John Ritter playing against character as a violent, yet chirpy robot. Mini-Golf. Buffy in that cleavage-y leopard top. Ted a little upset with Buffy cheating. Xander, Willow and Cordelia working together. Buffy fighting Tedbot because he slapped her. Tedbot's own form of hash cookies. The Bad: During 'When She Was Bad' it is mentioned there is no miniature golf course. Everyone in the school looking at Buffy as if she is a killer. How do they know anything? Tedbot is so, so, so far advanced from the future Buffybot. It can do everything. The copout of Tedbot being a robot is similar to the extreme copout of having Wesley kill his father in 'Linage' and not be real. All Comments | Link29 | EllieSep 16, 2010 @ 2:52pm I really don't agree Ted being revealed as an evil robot at the end to be a cop-out. Buffy didn't know this when she "killed" him, no one did, and she suffered the same guilt and isolation she would have had she really killed a human being. While it was definitely a relief to find out Ted was a robot, she still experienced what it would be like to kill a human and the experience remained with her. I also agree with many of the posters here that the show just wasn't ready to delve into the consequences of Buffy killing a human for real yet, and that it would take more than one episode to do so. All Comments | Link30 | John RobertsSep 21, 2010 @ 6:44am 80? Wow. Count me in the Nope camp. The good - Willow-Oz (that Ozzie is so sweet and cute) Giles - Jenny Buffy - Joyce, sorta The bad - Buffy - Joyce wasn't terribly deep or interesting, more of the usual really Cordelia - Xander, not credible Ted wasn't very compelling The plot holes were too large for even me, Mr. Tolerant, to accept On the latter. Ted builds his own Terminator. This is Hellmouth, not "Enchanted Technology Land." Then Ted beats Buffy senseless, But can't spend 5 seconds while in a locked room to break her neck and finish the job. Instead, he lets her wake up and kill him. Holy Batman, that's stupid Ted. Oh and of course he wanders around the house waiting to get brained. Not that he he has any brains, apparently. Then there's the cops. That's the worst of all. Faux realistic. So ... what? Buffy hauls off the Ted body, says "hey see it's a robot I'm innocent" to the police, then the whole matter is all squared away? Meanwhile Joyce sleeps through everything and wakes up, the cops don't even need to talk with her? So that she never figures out that Ted was not a man? Yeah. Sure. I won't even go into the school thing. The Sad Overalls was so over the top it was kinda fun, though. Blech. I'd rather watch Ms. French. All Comments | Link31 | Michael CarruthersSep 21, 2010 @ 4:47pm I really liked this episode. Like you say, mikejer, it could've had the potential to be a lot better (like one of the best eps of the season), but my reasoning is different to your own. I actually don't have any problem with Ted being a robot. It's foreshadowed by his OTT-nice behaviour. And I still found the Buffy-killed-a-human aspect of the episode effective despite the robot subplot. It's good that the writers delved into this idea early in the series. I can see why they wouldn't want Buffy to have *actually* killed a human given the stage in her life she was at. What I didn't like is how Xander explains the entire plot in a matter of five seconds .. it was lazy writing, and didn't really make sense. And Ted was sooo easily defeated. With a friggin pan? Lame! I heard the scene was supposed to be longer originally but Sarah was sick or something. I agree with the 80 rating. Find this episode underrated for the most part. All Comments | Link32 | CoyoteBuffyFanFeb 19, 2011 @ 1:04pm The first thing that I thought about when Buffy was beating up the vampire rather than trying to stake him was Faith as well. It's a great parallel. It could have been great to see even more parallels if Buffy had actually killed a person. The way Buffy dealt with it could have been directly compared to Faith. I would suspect that Buffy would embrace the notion that she did something wrong and her friends, Giles, mother, and Angel would all have helped her through it. While Faith acted like it wasn't her fault and shunned responsibility. She had no one to support her so she turned to evil. It would have been a great comparison -- if only. It's funny because Buffy has always been a show about taking risks, some that work and some that might not, but it seems like they were hesitant in this episode and didn't want to "go there" at this point in time with a heroine that killed a human. I'm glad that they went to much darker places later in the seasons. All Comments | Link33 | LeadJun 12, 2011 @ 1:47pm It's pretty forgivable here to reveal Ted as a robot, in my opinion, because the show simply had not reached that level of seriousness yet. As someone else said, there was no foundation for it. It was enough that Buffy *thought* she had committed a murder (however justified). Also, it was a stand-alone episode with no precedent for expecting something seriously life-changing. *Mild spoilers for Angel Season Five* Contrast this to AtS Season Five, in "Lineage," when they pull the same stunt AGAIN. This was much more of a cop-out. The show's writers had been gradually building up the awful father/son relationship between Wesley and his dad for several seasons. By the time you hear that Wesley's dad has come to Wolfram and Hart you know something big is going to go down. Also, considering how important a character moment it was, making Wesley's dad a machine was way less forgivable. All Comments | Link34 | DanaJun 12, 2011 @ 5:54pm @Lead I agree with you... this series was slightly less adult at this time, and killing a human would have been a little over the top for the beginning of season 2. However you were right about Angle, that moment between Wes and his father was huge and all of a sudden depressing. At least they could have created some arch to go with those lame ninja robots! *Season 3 Buffy spoiler* On a side note, I believe that later on in Buffy, when Faith killed the mayors confident, Buffy should have been WAY more sypatheic to Faith after having dealt with this whole Ted thing. All Comments | Link35 | daviduAug 19, 2011 @ 6:10am Willow shows interest in the dark side of science, Forshadowing dark willow All Comments | Link36 | Gemma Dec 14, 2011 @ 1:49pm Looking retrospectively, this episode was always one of my naughty hidden favourites of the season. What strikes me about this episode is the realness of it, the circumstance of a father figure is a common trope. The show goes so far as to suggest that Ted could be a violent and forceful man to begin with. The truth of what he is comes towards the end of the episode but not before Buffy believes that she has killed him. Attacking a human for Buffy is a big no no at least not at full slayer strength as its notable in other episodes that she uses force sometimes to defend weaker students or people. What we get from this incident is some great character depth and growth from Buffy, admitting what she has done sums up Buffy's view and what Ted says 'whats right is right' foreshadows this. During her questioning at the police station we see Buffy's response to death for the first time, she caused it. At this point Buffy isn't the slayer, this is one of the rare moments we see Buffy get what she wants, a separate life from the Slayer only it isn't exactly what she wanted. We see a scared vulnerable girl who acted out of bad judgment in self defence. This produced for an amazing stand alone episode. It is my opinion that Buffy's true grief is the miss use of her powers instead of the death of Ted. This foreshadows events regarding Faith in Bad Girls, she acted on instinct. The situation made it clear that it wasn't her fault. Giles confirms this when he says that allowances are made; a slayer in battle vampires encroaching, things happen. We don't see Faith following Buffy's footsteps until she heads to LA. Buffy was suspicious of Ted from the start, following the incident at mini golf, these are shown to founded when Ted returns. This doesn't come to light until we have seen some amazing acting from SMG; her belief that she killed a man, the effect and strain it has on her relationship with her mother and the whispers and looks she gets from school. Even her friends believe at first that Ted was a demon, Xander asks 'so what was he?' They rally together to show Buffy isn't a murderer, which luckily with some investigation via the computer (one machine trumps another haha!) proves that Ted himself had a few skeletons in the closet. Once Ted resurfaces the show takes a leaf out of the Buffy blue print and it becomes monster of week. Bottom Line; Great episode with some nice moments between Giles and Jenny too. All Comments | Link37 | Gemma Dec 14, 2011 @ 2:05pm I forgot to mention the foreshadowing in this episode; Robo Ted is the seed for Buffy bot and Amber in IWMTLY. Buffy helping Angel Graduation Day pt 1. All Comments | Link38 | JustJennaMar 14, 2012 @ 3:17am @John Roberts In regards to your comments about the cops and the stupidity of how things ended, I figured that when Xander, Willow, and Cordelia showed the police the lair they found, with the dead bodies of Ted's ex-wives, that Buffy was off-the-hook in terms of the murder charge. She had no need to drag the robot to the cops to prove her innocence because they already believed her self defense claim and closed the case. I figured she and the Scoobies disposed of the robot before Joyce woke up. I'm sure the police wondered about the missing "body" but there was nothing to link Buffy to it's disappearance. I assume any further questioning from the police happened off screen. All Comments | Link39 | AlexMar 15, 2012 @ 8:27am I assumed the police/doctors had seen Ted get up from the morgue table and walk away (I figured Ted was actually telling the truth there), so although they would have been very confused I don't think they would have had to question Buffy any further. But in general, I always felt like we had to suspend our disbelief a little bit when it came to the Scooby Gang's dealing with the law. I felt the same way about "Passion" - I couldn't really believe Giles would get off so lightly when Jenny showed up dead in his bed. But I'm sure nobody would have wanted to see him getting questioned for hours and hours so I didn't really mind that they skipped over that detail. All Comments | Link40 | BenAug 23, 2012 @ 7:42am I agree that it is disappointing they make him some sort of psycho robot. But saying that, this would indeed have had to span part of the seasons arc, and it just wouldn't have fit. Picture squeezing in Buffy's atonement, her distrust of her own powers, her mum never looking at her the same again, her dealing with being a full on murderer, hell even the Council probably getting involved... with Angel loosing his soul. It just wouldn't have worked. Had this episode come later in the series, with the Angelus arc not literally about to start, I can imagine them tackling the gruesome reality of her killing a human being, albeit an evil one. This is an issue that did seem to annoy me both in Buffy and Angel... there is severe Demon Racism! With humans, no matter how bad they are, Buffy cannot touch them. With demons, they have to really prove that they are good, otherwise they are first for the chop. Does seem to be really black and white in the world of a slayer. A good episode by itself, but yeah nothing special. The arc stemming from it really couldn't have worked in any Buffy season. You get to season 3 and we already have an unstable slayer. Get to 4 and 5 and Buffy is a grown woman and not dependent on her mother. Past 5, obviously, Joyce is no longer around. All Comments | Link41 | AlexAug 23, 2012 @ 8:11am Ben, that's true on BtVS, but I think that AtS takes a much less black-and-white approach when it comes to demons vs. humans. There are plenty of good demons (e.g. Lorne, Doyle) and plenty of evil humans (e.g. a good number of Wolfram & Hart's lawyers and clients), and plenty of shades of grey in between on both sides. Indeed, that's the whole theme of the episode 'That Old Gang of Mine', even though it's done in a kind of ham-fisted way. In the later seasons of Buffy we do get characters like Clem, a 'good' demon, but on the whole I think Buffy is much more simplistic about this theme than Angel. I think it's approached in a much more interesting, mature and thought-provoking way in Angel, even though I generally prefer Buffy over Angel. All Comments | Link42 | Gemma Aug 23, 2012 @ 9:56am Not so sure i agree with regards to the statement/opinion above on the subject of the simplistic black and white world of good and evil in Buffy. While i agree that the first few seasons of BtVS don;t explore the concept of grey areas and focus primarily on good v bad but later on it does begin to dissolve these straight boarders consider Faith? Spike himself begins to delve into grey waters; forced to be good through having a government implanted chip in his brain and then his love for Buffy. Even Dawn, she is mortal and not evil but energy that could be used for evil...grey area to me. In season 7, episode Showtime we see Anya and Giles seek out a demon who opens a portal, he owns a business and doesn't seem to be outwardly evil. Shoot back to season 3 and enemies, the demon who wants to sell the books of accession he just wanted cash. I guess everyone has an opinion and Angel as a show does go into more detail because the show had a different message than BtVS i merely wanted to put across my point of view All Comments | Link43 | AlexAug 24, 2012 @ 2:25am Gemma, I'm not saying that Buffy doesn't have shades of grey when it comes to good and evil (it wouldn't be the amazing show it is, otherwise), but I still think the 'demon racism' thing that Ben mentioned is much more prevalent on Buffy than on Angel. That's not to say there aren't exceptions, of course, but generally Buffy's rule seems to be that most demons are fair game (if she sees a demon, she doesn't usually stop to interrogate it and make sure it's definitely a really evil demon before she fights it). Humans, on the other hand are usually (but not absolutely always) off limits, even if they're evil scumbags. That rule doesn't seem to apply in Angel, which has plenty of harmless demons who are free to go about their business, and several cases of humans getting killed who quite frankly had it coming. But my main point, which I'm not sure I made very well, was just to counter what Ben said about 'demon racism' being a problem in both Buffy and Angel. I'm saying that while I can see how you could think that about Buffy, I really don't think you can say the same about Angel. All Comments | Link44 | Gemma Aug 24, 2012 @ 3:00am Alex, i understand your point and which i think i did misunderstand originally, i agree with you that you could say there is a possibility of demon racism in Buffy, as faith pointed out a demons a demon. In angel though, i agree you can't say the same. Look at the episode Hero with Doyle saving those other halfbreed demons. Also Lorne! I apologise for not understanding before :) All Comments | Link45 | AnnOct 24, 2012 @ 1:08am *in reply to Alex (#43) I think that Buffy is just as thought-provoking as Angel when it comes to the treatment of demons. If anything I think Angel takes it too far (they acted as if Gunn was racist for thinking it was okay to kill a demon that eats babies). Buffy quit the WC when they wouldn't help Angel simply because he was a vampire, she slept with two vampires, one of which was soulless. She was the bridesmaid of an ex demon at a wedding in which half the guest list were demons, she never raided Willy's place, she tried to get Riley to understand that every demon was different and that there were varying degrees of evil, she spent 8 hours talking to soulless Holden and even said "you're not a stranger" (she staked him out of shock of finding out souled Spike was siring), she delayed going after Anya for many months after finding out she was a vengeance demon again, she was polite to the loan shark, she defended werewolves to Cain and completely accepted Oz, she was okay with Clem and even let him babysit her sister, she fought alongside soulless vampires (the Gorch brothers, Spike), etc. If she kills a demon it is usually because said demon just tried to kill her or killed someone else. Buffy has never been close to black and white and has always asked questions and wanted to know the whole story about something (which The Initiative & the Watchers Council definitely frowned on). Yes, Buffy didn't want to be a vampire (Nightmares), have an aspect of the demon (Earshot), or possibly be less human (Smashed) but that was from the fact that she already is less human. She already has the essence of a demon in her from being the Slayer. Even before she knew exactly how the Slayer line was created (GID) she still felt all of the demonic aspects of it. Some might even say that Slayers have more demon in them than vampires or that a Slayer is like a souled vampire but with stronger abilities. She felt like it was a struggle to hold onto the human part of her, as if the Slayer part was taking over. If she added in yet another demon part than she feared the human part really would disappear. She already had bloodlust, precognition, slight clairvoyance, violent memories of women throughout history, and all of the superpowers like eccelerated healing, reflexes, speed, endurance, strength, and durability. Buffy did show a lot of sympathy for Faith when she accidentally killed Finch. However, Faith did NOT want Buffy's sympathy because she saw it as pity. She didn't want to seem even more inferior to Buffy. Nobody blamed Faith for Finch's death. It was Faith's lack of outward remorse, lying to Giles and blaming it on Buffy, strangling Xander nearly to death, etc, that they started to lose sympathy for Faith. Buffy yelled at Wesley for getting the WC men involved, told Angel she wasn't giving up on Faith, and wanted to see it as a pro-Faith sign that Faith didn't just run and leave Trick to killing Buffy (even though the reason he was almost able to was that Buffy pushed Faith out of the way of the falling crates and got crushed by them instead). All Comments | Link46 | SummerDec 16, 2012 @ 9:23pm I think this episode also highlights how eager Xander is to have a normal family. He's usually very suspicious of the males in Buffy's life but was very accepting of father Ted who wanted to make him pizza and cookies. Of course, he turns the corner into suspicious Xander mode after the killing but he didn't like playing surrogate brother role for a "perfect" family for a little while there. I call those Buffy's "feeling-sorry-for-herself" overalls. She loves to shuffle around in them, sadly. Also, how did they explain Ted's disappearance? I guess Joyce was happy just to have him leave after he got creepy. The end of cute. All Comments | Link47 | JessPJan 23, 2013 @ 6:11pm *in reply to Bill (#11) I realize I'm about four years too late, but I have to chime in that I think BtVS is much more consistent about the killing of humans than Bill's comment recognizes. It's not because Faith killed a human that she was labeled "bad" and rejected by the Scoobies -- it was the fact that she was unable to acknowledge her culpability. This is the true difference between Faith and Buffy. Faith felt that she was above the law -- literally better than others -- and therefore rejected any responsibility for her crimes. Without responsibility, there can be no true remorse (Faith literally says "I don't care.") Buffy, in contrast, embraced her responsibility with no hesitation (she admits to the police IMMEDIATELY that she pushed Ted down the stairs). Buffy is devastated and remorseful because she accepts responsibility for her power and her actions.Giles is a slightly different case, with the killing of Ben, but I also think that was completely in character. Giles never drew the moral line that Buffy drew, and he was always willing to do the practical, necessary dirty work. He even says this in "The Gift" (forgive me if the quote is not exact) before killing Ben, something like, "Buffy's a hero, she's not like us." Giles is acknowledging that Buffy holds herself to a higher standard, and in fact, she should -- as someone with slayer powers, she has an obligation to regular people to not exploit those powers -- essentially, to use them only to fight demons and keep them out of normal human affairs, where they have no place. Faith, of course, rejects that idea as well. As for Willow and Anya, who both killed humans, they both also accepted responsibility for what they did and accepted the consequences of that responsibility. Willow goes to England and she says to Giles "When you brought me here... I thought it was to kill me. Or lock me in some mystical dungeon for all eternity, or with the torture..." And Anya offers herself to D'Hoffryn in exchange for the lives of the boys she killed. They both felt real remorse and accepted responsibility COMPLETELY for what they did, just as Buffy did in Ted. And it wasn't until Faith helped Angel, went to jail, and otherwise strove to atone for her crimes was she able to redeem herself, and join Buffy at the end of season 7. This is a very long-winded way of saying I think the writers have been very consistent on this issue. The characters are imperfect, they make mistakes, they hurt people -- but what's important is that they know the value of every single human life (even Warren's) and accept the consequences for ending that life. (As a side note, does anyone wonder whatever happened to the worm guy in Beneath You after he gets stabbed? I always felt bad for him). I will just conclude by saying LibMax's point is spot on and beautifully expressed. All Comments | Link48 | GonMar 5, 2013 @ 9:49am I agree with MikeJer: this was a perfect episode until Ted came back. I also agree it would have been impossible to handle decently the theme of Buffy murdering a human in this season. I see no solution. But certainly the whole 50's story and the phony reactions to that only made it worse. Oh, and how come isn't Joyce amazed by Buffy's strenght when she's kicking Ted? Post a Comment
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"He's a clean clown." I don't know why but I was laughing just as much as Willow when she said that. I'm smiling while I write. :)
Knowing that Buffy's parents put her in a mental institution for 3 weeks against her will simply for being a vampire slayer makes that bedroom scene with Buffy and Ted so much more believable and sad for Buffy. He threatened to tell her mom that she was writing about being a slayer in her diary and basically telling her that her mom will think she is crazy and put her away. That must have terrified her so much. The thought that she might go back or that she would have to relive the memory of what her parents, her mom, did to her.