Commenter Lookup *Caution* Unless you see an ADMIN tag, the comments below may not all belong to the same person! "The Wish" | View Comments2 | AndreaApr 23, 2011 Angel's presence is explained here when Buffy finds him in the cage at The Bronze. That's how he knows her name - Whistler has already told him about her and brought him to see her at the high school in LA. Angel came up to Sunnydale to wait for Buffy to arrive, but (presto change-o!) she never does. I don't think this explains Giles's presence, though, because he had no clue until Cordelia said something that Buffy was supposed to be his slayer. Here's the relevant dialogue (from buffyworld.com): Angel: Buffy Summers. She turns to face Angel and gives him an inquiring look. Angel gets another look at her, and now he's sure. Angel: (weakly) It's you. I mean... you don't remember. How could you? Buffy: How did you know my name? Angel: I waited. I waited here for you. But you never... I was supposed to help you. Buffy: (huffs) You were gonna help me. Angel: (weakly) The Master rose. He let me live... to punish me. I kept hoping maybe you'd come. My destiny. "I Only Have Eyes for You" | View Comments3 | AndreaApr 19, 2011 @ LibMax - wow. You really blew my mind. I never realized quite how much the story was about Buffy and Angel. I always knew they were reenacting the murder, but I when I read your comment, and then watched Buffy and Angel start the repeating conversation, I realized that it was literally a conversation THEY could be having (which continues throughout the scene), rather than James and Miss Newman. The line: "Don't walk away from me, bitch!" Wow. Chilling. Hateful. Brutal. Probably one of the most brutal lines of the series. And all the actors who deliver it, deliver it with a believable, gut-wrenching hate (/love). SMG especially. I like how Giles's opinions on forgiveness seem to carry over to the forgiveness he eventually offers Angel next season. He walks the walk. Also, love Snyder's "I'm no stranger to conspiracy - I saw JFK." A big LMAO here. Wonderfully delivered from a consistently awesome Principal Snyder. And lastly, this song will creep me out forever. I have it on my iPod, and it plays amongst all the lovely old love songs, but it terrifies me every time. "Passion" | View Comments4 | AndreaApr 19, 2011 The scene between Angel and Joyce in the driveway/on the porch is one of the best and most frightening scenes of the episode, because the whole time you're thinking Joyce is going to get it. (Although I don't know why Buffy lets her stay out there and drop her groceries, etc. Angel could have killed her in a split second if he'd wanted to. And Buffy must - MUST - have been watching to see when her mom would arrive home.) Kristine Sutherland deserves huge props for her work here - she acts EXACTLY as I imagine my mom acting if some guy was stalking me and showed up uninvited at my house. And the look she gives Angel when he reveals that he and Buffy had sex? Flawless. I love how she is so protective of Buffy here. I love Joyce more and more every time I rewatch the series... And as always, I am dreading S5. Jenny's death just makes you sick. As soon as she sees Angel there, and has to stand there for so long as he babbles, but has no hope of escape, can't call out to anyone - not Buffy, not Giles... wow. Love, LOVE, Giles getting his hits in on Angel first with the burning bat - my soul was cheering there, lol! And love that Spike makes Dru stay out of it. :> Has anyone ever wondered where the voiceover comes from? Is it supposed to be Angelus, or Angel? It seems pretty introspective to be Angelus. Is it supposed to be at the time, or later? Or is it completely outside the narrative, just voiced by Boreanaz? Re: Jenny Calendar - Recurring? PS - Haha, love the computer lighting on fire when Angel throws it to the ground. No one would fall for that nowadays. "Innocence" | View Comments5 | AndreaApr 18, 2011 Ah ha: Willow: Angel! Jenny: He's not Angel anymore. Are you. Angel: Wrong. I am Angel. At last. I take him at his word here! (Sorry for the double-posting - wish we could edit these!) "Innocence" | View Comments6 | AndreaApr 18, 2011 I love how this episode opens by subverting Joss's subversion of the blonde girl in the alleyway: this blonde girl in the alleyway IS helpless and DOES get killed. (Btw: I don't assume that she's a hooker.) I love Angelus so much more than boring old Angel. I also love Spike's incredulity at Angel's obsession with Buffy, and his "You've really got a yen to hurt this girl, don't you?" Fast forward to S4, and he's one to talk. :) Re: Lizzie's question: "So, does that make souled Angel a better souled person than spike, or does that make soulless Angelus an eviler person than soulless Spike?" I come down on the side of Spike here. I think his chip is irrelevant to the question, because his chip can't and doesn't necessarily curb his desire to kill, it can only train him not to try. At no point does soulless Angelus (hey - that's redundant!) ever express love, or a desire to obtain a soul. He never evolves as a person. But soulless Spike does come to love Buffy (or, for the people who refuse the possibility of a soulless being loving anything, he expresses love and believes he feels it) and actively seeks out a soul. For Angelus, a soul is punishment, but for Spike, it's a much-desired reward. I think Angelus is Angel's true form, and he's only trapped within the soul of Angel by way of the gypsy curse, emerging every so often and declaring himself to be 'free' to prove my point. I know there's some evidence of this that I could draw from AtS, but I've only watched it once so I can't recall it exactly! "Surprise" | View Comments7 | AndreaApr 18, 2011 One other quick comment: I'm always surprised at how eager Spike is in S2 to 'hire' other individuals to kill Buffy when he (already) has such a jones for Slayers. Admittedly in this episode he can't kill Buffy what with the wheelchair and all, but he brought in the Order of Taraka, for example, and was quite giddy about it. When I think of Spike, I would assume he'd never deprive himself of the pleasure, no matter how long it took. And we know he already admires Buffy greatly as a fighter, and would probably consider her his greatest conquest. So considering what we learn about him and Slayers in the future, I sort of view this S2 tendency as out of character. "Surprise" | View Comments8 | AndreaApr 18, 2011 Lol, here's my petty complaint about the Judge: why did the people who destroyed him by severing all his limbs place them into boxes that fit perfectly together to immediately reanimate him? Wouldn't that just make it way easier for the person who managed to gather all the different pieces? "What's My Line? Pt. 1" | View Comments9 | AndreaApr 18, 2011 Anyone notice the implication that Kendra is represented by the leopard tarot card? Part of a long Western literary legacy of representing African/black women as 'animalistic' (or animals). (Hello, Edward Said!) "School Hard" | View Comments10 | AndreaApr 17, 2011 Re-watching. I just thought to myself that it's actually quite sad, Joyce's "Nobody lays a hand on my little girl" near the end. Like all mothers, Joyce is obviously distraught at the idea of someone hitting her daughter or being violent with her. But her words here are so empty, because there's ultimately nothing she can do about it. Buffy regularly receives super-whalings from super-villains that Joyce could never, ever stop. I often feel so sorry for Joyce in that she's even less capable of protecting her child than 'normal' parents. I'm thinking too about how Joyce would feel about Buffy's future violent relationship with Spike. Sad. "The Zeppo" | View Comments11 | AndreaAug 10, 2010 Okay, LMFAO @ Xander walking in on what would have been a mayjah Buffy/Angel scene on any other night!! Angel is CRYING for goodness sakes! The writers are totally poking fun at the B/A melodrama here. "Helpless" | View Comments12 | AndreaAug 10, 2010 Also love that Giles and Quentin are taking tea on fine china in the creepiest, dirtiest old mansion you've ever seen as they discuss the violation and possible death of a young girl. Decorum, you know. Then later Quentin is enjoying a nice cuppa again while Buffy may very well be getting disemboweled in said mansion. Has anyone noticed that whenever Buffy's feeling particularly horrible/depressed/feeling a little sorry for herself she puts on those denim overalls? Lol! I like that little touch of character detail, very true for a lot of girls, I think, who dress their outsides to fit their feelings inside! "Helpless" | View Comments13 | AndreaAug 10, 2010 I kind of love that Buffy goes tearing around Sunnydale, on a quiet residential street, just *screaming* for help, and not one person comes out to help her or opens their door. Of course they don't come out: they probably hear that kind of thing all the time, and know enough not to come out and try to help. I like these little suggestions that people in Sunnydale know that there's "something" off about that town. It's interesting to see Buffy experiencing 'the Sunnydale life' from the POV of all the other screaming, helpless girls we've seen killed over the years. (Also kind of a ironic twist on Joss's original spark for the show: the helpless blonde girl in the alley who always gets killed.) "Beauty and the Beasts" | View Comments14 | AndreaAug 8, 2010 I have to opine that Angel shouldn't have been brought back. While it DOES make for some interesting issues during this episode and the next few where Buffy tries to deal with this fact (and the character of Angel does offer some good Funny throughout the season), to me it kind of reeks of plotting that was meant only to serve interests outside the universe of the show (i.e., to start the Angel spinoff). And it does cheapen Becoming. I wonder if they just decided between S2 and S3 that they wanted a spinoff... or else why would they kill Angel in such a huge, final way in the first place?? They could have changed the timing where Angelus changes back to Angel before the portal opens. (But of course that would have made Becoming way less perfect!!) I don't really agree that his coming back cheapens *HIS* sacrifice... because he didn't make a sacrifice! Buffy is the one who made the sacrifice in Becoming. "Bring on the Night" | View Comments15 | AndreaJul 29, 2010 I suppose I like the ultimate *idea* of this season: that in the end, Buffy ceases to be alone, and all girls who could have the power, will have the power, etc. I don't, unfortunately, like the Potentials. As Mike mentions they take up valuable screen time of our FINAL season when we really want to be seeing Core Four plus (for me), lots of old favourites. It just feels like a clumsy intrusion of characters who are just not likable. They totally lack the pre-development that we're used to in new or minor Buffy characters: Spike and Drusilla, Oz, Faith, the Mayor, (even Trick), Harmony, Anya, Wesley, Sunday, D'Hoffryn, Tara, Clem... All these new characters had something special and charismatic and that was a major part of Buffy, for me. (And some of them obviously stuck around.) I totally agree too that they were introduced horribly and were basically doomed to be hated by the fandom. As mentioned above: - they come storming into their very first scene and mess up the Scooby hug - they are immediately critical of Buffy's home - the one asks "did you slay it?" and then since Buffy didn't that makes us feel all bad and uncomfortable on her account - they don't believe in Buffy to beat the uber-vamp - a lot of them love to whine (...Rhona.) Yech. PS - Thank goodness for Andrew with all the huge funny in this season! "Him" | View Comments16 | AndreaJul 27, 2010 PS - YES this episode is HILARIOUS!!! My favourite moment is Spike silently chasing Buffy-with-a-Bazooka past the window and then silently tackling her while Principal Wood is listening to peaceful music inside his office, and you see them from over his shoulder through the window. Brilliant! "Him" | View Comments17 | AndreaJul 27, 2010 LOL - Did anyone notice Spike's unimpressed eyebrow-lift when RJ's brother is explaining his horror at finding poetry under RJ's bed ("turns out -- *he* wrote it"). Nice added texture to the scene from James Marsters! "Smashed" | View Comments18 | AndreaJul 20, 2010 I love this episode. Everything else has already been said, but can we add this as a "minus?": Willow's incredibly stupid-sounding Italian incantation? HOW did that actually get repeated so many times in table reads and takes and no one either noticed or took the effort to change what was so obviously a ridiculous-sounding incantation? The dramatic sound effects make it even funnier. I cannot take that scene seriously now. Chokey-foo-nonnay-poo-chokey-foo-fado... Oh man. Greenburg even winces bigtime in his commentary, lol! "Bargaining Pt. 2" | View Comments19 | AndreaJul 18, 2010 Re-watching this episode, I wonder if the purpose of the biker demons was that they would create the most hell-like environment for Buffy to walk back into (i.e. fires, terrible noises, etc). Maybe this was to make clear the metaphor that Buffy was walking into what was for her a hell. Still, they maybe could have thought of something a little better/less lame that could have achieved that purpose! :) "Crush" | View Comments20 | AndreaAug 5, 2008 Also, about why doesn't Buffy kill Drusilla... I noticed that as well in Lie to Me when Buffy grabs hold of her and then makes good on her word to exchange her for the hostage-vamp-wannabe-people... I wonder if she has some kind of underlying sympathy for Drusilla as Spike's girlfriend, or, say, Darla as Angel's ex-girlfriend. I'm not sure exactly, but I think it has something to do with subconsciously "respecting" that or not wanting to be *that* cruel to kill the significant other... Or something. And especially because Drusilla is a woman, I think. Maybe Buffy somehow identifies with her or Darla in that way. Maybe that factors in somewhere too. All this is very subconscious, of course. Hard to explain - I hate when I can't quite explain my thoughts! "Out of My Mind" | View Comments21 | AndreaAug 4, 2008 LOL re: Spike is actually watching Dawson's Creek! Almost more hilarious than his love for Passions. Obviously Buffy doesn't stake Spike because shesecretlyloveshimandandalwayshasandthey'resoulmatesandthey'retotallymeanttobe!!!!!!!! ...Ahem. I mean, yeah, wtf. There's no explanation for it. The ending of this episode is one of my favourite Buffy moments (for it's comic attributes as well as the... more obvious ones). "God, no. Please, no." Hilarious! "Out of My Mind" | View Comments22 | AndreaAug 4, 2008 PS - Speaking of the last scene, how shocked was everyone the first time you saw it?! That was a truly, truly awesome fake out - one of the best on the show. I thought 100% that that scene was actually happening. (And then, moments later, sodisappointed.) Just the way she was wearing the same outfit and she had said in the scene beforehand that she was going to stake him... (I guess maybe she gets distracted from it in real life when she goes home to see her mom and all that? It would go along with the whole ignoring Riley theme that she actually forgets to avenge him, lol!) "Crush" | View Comments23 | AndreaAug 4, 2008 Did anyone notice the earlier-season parallel when Spike shows up at the Bronze in khaki pants and a baby blue dress shirt? Angel tried the same thing (in almost the same shirt!) with Buffy in an early S2 episode (the one where Cordelia tries to commandeer his attention at the Bronze... "Well, his loss is your incredible gain!") I love that joke, that the vamp guys try to go all khaki because they think that's what Buffy will find attractive... I love Dawn's crush on Spike. I love that friendship altogether. Also, love Xander's jealousy at Dawn's newfound crush! Also love Willow and Tara's "Quasimodo" conversation. Spike is a little more aesthetically pleasing as our amoral-love-hero, though. "Wild at Heart" | View Comments24 | AndreaJul 28, 2008 Re: Veruca's singing - haha, agreed, very...throaty. But kind of strangely hypnotic, which I guess was what they were going for. I loved the character of Oz and I thought he had brilliant lines always... In the commentary of Earshot (S3) Jane Espensen noted that the writers always found it extremely difficult to write for Oz, simply because he said so little that when he did say something it had to be rrrreally good - a couple instants that come to mind are his and Xander's conversation about what makes someone cool in The Zeppo, or his thoughts in Earshot ("Buffy thinks, therefore... we are...") were amazing - and I think they always did a fantastic job. Seth Green was great as Oz, delivering lines like, "Maybe." or "Not the way I play it." and getting a huge laugh from them. Also wanted to comment on that + of Spike's intimidating speech in the beginning getting hilariously interrupted by the Commandos... Small stuff like that is what makes Joss Whedon and all his shows/etc genius. The evil villain, about to make a general evil villain speech, the music starts to rise and becomes tense, the camera zooms in ultra-dramatically on Spike's smoldering - evil, I mean, evil - cheekbones, and then BAM: pie in the face! Or, in this case, laser guns to the back. Classic Joss. I lol (literally) every time. After a while you begin to sense when Joss is going to do this - it's pretty consistent in Buffy when some character is about to take him- or herself too seriously, but in Angel I found myself almost confused when they allowed Angel to get away with making his painfully melodramatic speeches *without* following it up with a laugh. I guess that's one of the differences between the series, though. "Who Are You?" | View Comments25 | AndreaJul 28, 2008 Yup, just to reiterate... SMG and Eliza Dushku were INCREDIBLE in this episode! I couldn't believe how well they got the other's character down in terms of speech pattern, mannerism, body language, etc... I really believed that Faith was *in* Buffy's body (and vice versa) - no small feat! It would have been easy to just deliver the lines half-assed and not really bother to actually change your acting that much to emulate the other person... amazingly well done. And yes, I love the moment when Faith is punching Buffy, but sees herself, and you understand what she's saying is actually being said to *herself*... Definitely a masterful episode that really led me to understand (and sympathize with?) Faith more, a character arc that is carried over on Angel, as was mentioned in the review... The scene with Spike in the Bronze... definitely one of the hottest moments we've seen on Buffy. One other + I want to mention is how Faith realizes right away what's going on between Tara and Willow before any of the Scoobies figure it out. Great in two ways: Faith's talent for reading people (that she mentions in S7) is unexpected and adds depth and insight to her character, and underlines in a really sad way almost the way the Scoobies are starting to come apart at the seams. "Fool for Love" | View Comments26 | AndreaJul 28, 2008 This is my favourite Buffy episode. (Ahhh it's so hard to say that about any single episode - it's always 'oh but what about Once More with Feeling, Becoming, what about this and that one', but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it.) I'm a huge Spike fan, so obviously I find this ep. the very essence of Delightful, haha! This episode is literally perfection, some of the best writing I've seen ever, anywhere... you're so right about the chills-factor during Spike's speech about death. Amazing. Literal goosebumps. '"You think we're dancing?" "That's all we've ever done."' Incredible. There's not enough adjectives. The sequence of scenes in the Bronze and the alley is genius - the way they sync up Spike's fights with Nikki and Buffy, and then finally when they have the Flashback Spike actually just talking to Buffy while holding Nikki squirming underneath him is amazing. And ooooh (lol), when he pulls the coat (so coldly) off Nikki's dead body... chills, in a majorly-creeped-out-lightbulb-moment-about-just-how-bad-Spike-was way. I think the "dance" in the alley is one of my favourite Buffy *moments* as well, up there with '"Take all that away, and what's left?" "...Me."' And to make a general note of awe and appreciation, it's amazing how these backstories all intertwine in different episodes/seasons/shows in the Buffyverse, and almost nothing ever contradicts itself, it just gives a sense of real... truth or reality to the whole thing, kind of. Like the writers don't just throw things out there haphazardly and then forget about them. (You can see that in series like Friends, for example, when Rachel Green is given like 5 different birthdays, or another *good* example - a masterful one, in fact - is the Harry Potter series). Par example, I only just watched the Angel series (finally gave in - disappointed with it) and got to see the William-gets-sired scene from the other side - incredible the way it meshes with the scene in Buffy, but if you didn't watch both series you'd never know about the other side (And PS, who knew Angel was off saving missionaries while Spike was killing the slayer? The ponce...), and "Sorry love, I don't speak Chinese" shows up unexpectedly in a moment in another Angel episode that had me squealing with joy... The poem about Cecily's "beauty...effulgent" turns up in a hhhhilarious scene in the Angel series finale, then we have (of course) the consequences of killing Nikki show up in S7 in a larger way... I love the way this show/its writers make everything have meaning. Doug Petrie must have gone a long way in weaving this "Spike mythology/history thing"... Like, Spike's coat must have just been a coat at first, a decision by the costume department, and then Petrie comes in with this episode and makes it this amazing Enigma for the whole rest of the series that has you thinking about what it symbolizes every time you see it.... Or the callback to the Chaos Demon ("All slime and antlers!") that was maybe a throwaway line from S3 at the time... I'm going to stop now. I love it. "Fool for Love" | View Comments27 | AndreaJul 28, 2008 Ooops, one more random note - I freaking LOVE the patrolling scene with Riley, Xander, Anya, and Willow in the graveyard. Laugh out loud funny. Up there with my (hundreds of) top funny moments in the series. The whole thing with his uber-stealthy soldier hand signals that they don't get, and then you see them lumbering along crunching chips, Willow wearing a very bright pinky-striped sweater and bucket hat (lol), then Xander going, "HEY RILEY? WHAT'S WITH THE *hilarious emulation of hand signal*"... It's such an essentially Scoobies moment that they don't take patrolling all that seriously because the vamps are going to come out to get them anyway, etc... love that theme throughout the series. "Graduation Day Pt. 2" | View Comments28 | AndreaJul 12, 2008 Another + for this episode: Angel thinking that Willow is Buffy... hilarious!!!!! And then Oz's line, "You too, huh?" Gets me every time. "Graduation Day Pt. 2" | View Comments29 | AndreaJul 12, 2008 And yeah, when all the kids stand up and take off their convocation gowns to fight the Mayor together always gives me shivers... A really beautiful sentiment by Joss. "Band Candy" | View Comments30 | AndreaJul 10, 2008 Oh, another favourite moment in this ep.: the Volvo streetrace. Genius. "Band Candy" | View Comments31 | AndreaJul 9, 2008 I always love silly little jokes and events that happen in these earlier episodes that continue on throughout the rest of the series... hyena-people get jokingly mentioned quite a few more times, for example, and Giles and Joyce Doin' It on top of a police car is alluded to at least four or five more times throughout the series and is alllways hilarious... I think the first mention is in Earshot when Buffy finds out for the first time what they actually *did*... As I mentioned in another episode review, I despise Xander/Willow and wish it could be permanently blocked from my memory. On top of all the content-related reasons why it's horrible and uncomfortable and cringe-worthy, Nicholas Brendon and Alyson Hannigan have absolutely zero sexual chemistry... it's like watching a brother and sister (i.e., Xander and Willow!). It's one of those things that's *so* awkward and embarassing to *watch*, you almost have to turn away. |
Latest News  Delays... MikeJer - Feb 24, 2013 Hey all!I just wanted to let you all know that I'm looking forward to getting going on my Season 2 review updates. I recently started a new job, so life has been extra bu... View Full Post Latest Comments Ryan ONeil [Consequences] *in reply to James (#30) Probably public property View CommentMay 19, 2013 Waverley [Family] This episode makes me cry like a big girly man every time. That bit where Buffy says 'Take h... View CommentMay 18, 2013 Waverly [Season 6 Review] This is a difficult season to rate for me. It's among my least favourite but I admire, and a... View CommentMay 18, 2013 Latest Forum Posts Iguana-on-a-stick [Xander Harris] Those are some fascinating ideas, Mike. I like them all. The Faith one... would have opened... View PostMay 19, 2013 MikeJer [Critically Touched Reviews: Frea] w00t w00t! View PostMay 19, 2013 NewSpock [Fanediting: Turned Buffy season ] I redid the edit using the NTSC-dvd's of season 1 I ordered from amazon and finished the edi... View PostMay 19, 2013 |
This how I chose to explain the supposed "glitch" in the Slayer Line that the First Evil is so adamant about wiping out.
When Buffy died in S1, Kendra was activated and, after her death, Faith. As such, now the Slayer Line will proceed only with Faith's death.
However, after Buffy's resurrection in S6, and taking for granted that somehow she came back slightly different (i.e. Spike being able to hurt her), I think that Buffy was somehow pulled back into the Line, meaning that, if she was ever to die again, a new Slayer would be activated. The glitch, as I understand it, is that, potentially, this procedure - death and mystical resurrection - allows for infinite Slayers and that's why the First Evil has now decided to disrupt the balance and wipe out the Line.
I don't know if this make any kind of sense, but I find that it's the more likely solution to explain what is going on in S7.