Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 55

Here from Glamour UK? Welcome!

Hi there! Are you here because you saw my book The Boss in Glamour UK? Welcome!

 

Sophie Scaife almost ran away once, trading her ticket to college for a ticket to Tokyo. But a delayed flight and a hot one-night stand with a stranger changed her mind, putting her firmly on track to a coveted position at a New York fashion magazine.

When the irresistible stranger from that one incredible night turns out to be her new boss – billionaire and publishing magnate Neil Elwood – Sophie can’t resist the chance to rekindle the spark between them… and the opportunity to explore her submissive side with the most Dominant man she’s ever known. 

You can find The Boss for FREE on Amazon UK and iBooks!

Here from Glamour UK? Welcome! (pinned post)

Hi there! Are you here because you saw my book The Boss in Glamour UK? Welcome!

 

Sophie Scaife almost ran away once, trading her ticket to college for a ticket to Tokyo. But a delayed flight and a hot one-night stand with a stranger changed her mind, putting her firmly on track to a coveted position at a New York fashion magazine.

When the irresistible stranger from that one incredible night turns out to be her new boss – billionaire and publishing magnate Neil Elwood – Sophie can’t resist the chance to rekindle the spark between them… and the opportunity to explore her submissive side with the most Dominant man she’s ever known. 

You can find The Boss for FREE on Amazon UK and iBooks!

True Blood Tuesday S02E12 “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”

This is it, guys! The episode where they cut the rope and let the boat float on out to Jesus! Download here, start playing roughly when the HBO sound/logo fade from the screen.

Barbie Girl: A Musical Interlude

FADE IN

INT. JENNY’S BEDROOM – DAY

JENNY, an elegant woman of taste and distinction, eats chocolate pretzels pantsless beside her husband, MR. JEN, a strange man. They’re watching the “Top Ten Pop Songs from The ’90s” list on MsMojo. Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” plays in the background.

VOICE OVER

(on TV)

It’s doubtful it’s anyone’s favorite song…

Jenny looks pointedly at Mr. Jen, who grins.

JENNY

It’s doubtful, right?

Mr. Jen keeps on grinning.

JENNY

I just cannot believe that about you. I can’t believe that is your favorite song.

Mr. Jen is still grinning , unashamed.

JENNY

Like, it’s not in a funny way. It’s not in an ironic way. It is genuinely, and without sarcasm, your favorite song of all time.

MR. JEN

It’s a good song.

JENNY

Good?

MR. JEN

It’s the best song.

FADE OUT

THE END

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch, S03E14, “Bad Girls”

In every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone is suffering from extreme vertigo, so please bear with her. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight/bi female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!
The Watchers have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Vampire bites, even very brief ones, are 99.8% fatal.
Economic inequality is humorized and oversimplified.

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.

We open on Buffy and Faith kicking the asses of some vampires who are dressed alike, so they’re probably part of some evil vampire cult. Like they usually are. While they fight, Faith talks about sex. Because that is Faith’s function in the story: to turn evil and be sexy (#1, #6, #32). Faith wants to know why Buffy has never had sex with Xander. Buffy says she thinks it ruins friendships to have sex with friends, then points out that there’s another vampire who’s getting away. They manage to kill the vampire, but Buffy and Faith have some seriously different ideas regarding how serious and dangerous their jobs are. But at least they’re getting closer. Friendly, even. They decide to grab the weapons left behind by the mysteriously be-robed vampires, but the weapons have disappeared.

In the Mayor’s office, Mr. Trick puts those missing weapons on the Mayor’s desk, while the Mayor chuckles over The Family Circus. If you’re unfamiliar with The Family Circus, this is a fairly good example of its clever humor:

*copyrighted image reproduced here only for the purpose of demonstration.

So, clearly, this man is evil.

The Mayor: “Do you like Family Circus?”

Mr. Trick: “I like Marmaduke.”

The Mayor: “Oh, ew. He’s always on the furniture. Unsanitary.”

Mr. Trick: “No one can tell Marmaduke what to do. That’s my kind of dog.”

Assistant Guy: “I like to read Cathy.”

The Mayor wants to keep an eye on the vampires-with-ceremonial-weapons situation, but his main goal is his “dedication,” a ceremony that will begin his ascension. Afterward, he explains, he’ll be on a “higher plain” and won’t be “concerned with the little things.” He says this while cleaning his hands with a baby wipe.

So, let’s talk about The Mayor’s cliche OCD tendencies. I get that it’s funny to think of a guy who has no problem dealing with all sorts of arcane and probably icky stuff being obsessed with everyday cleanliness concerns. And I understand that we equate cleanliness with wholesomeness, and likely we’re meant to see this as part of The Mayor’s golly-gee persona. But from my perspective (I have OCD that manifests in handwashing and contamination paranoia, among other assorted rituals and fears), I feel like this qualifies as #14. It’s already too easy to use “crazy” to define a villain (we just saw that two episodes ago), so it’s lazy characterization, as well. And to be honest, it makes me kind of sympathetic toward The Mayor. He’s willing to become a destroyer of worlds just to avoid having to deal with germs? I can kind of relate.

The Mayor tells Mr. Trick to make sure the Slayers know about the vampire cult guys. That way, two birds might get killed with one stone. After that, we’re on to the credits.

At Sunnydale High, Xander, Oz, Willow, and Buffy are marveling over Willow’s acceptance to some of the best colleges in the country–scratch that, in the world.

Xander: “Is anyone else intimidated? ‘Cause I’m just expecting thin slips of paper with the words ‘no way’ written in crayon.”

Oz: “They’re typing those now.”

Not only has Willow been accepted to these schools, they’re actively pursuing her. Let’s not forget this when we roll into season four. Xander, meanwhile, has no real hope for college and has already resigned himself to working blue collar jobs for the rest of his life. I feel this realism, Xander. Oz’s advice to Willow is that she should probably graduate because he’s not as impressed with his repeat senior year as he expected to be. Buffy is just psyched that her friend is already crushing the post-college lifestyle.

Cordelia has apparently been eavesdropping on their conversation, because she appears just in time to mock Xander for planning on being a loser, rather than becoming one by accident.

Xander: “The comedy stylings of Miss Cordelia Chase, everyone. Who, uh, incidentally won’t be needing a higher education when she markets her own very successful line of hooker-wear.”

Cordelia: “Well, Xander, I could dress more like you, but…oh. My father has a job.”

Do we have a number about economic inequality yet? #36: Economic inequality is humorized and oversimplified. We’ve seen examples of this before, but from this point in season three and right on through season six, this is a major point. Xander’s post-high school characterization is based entirely on his “failure” to succeed economically, while Cordelia’s storyline is about to take a turn, as well (we’ll touch on that as it comes).

In the library, Giles is barely containing his rage while a baby-Giles putters around, pontificating pompously.

You’re welcome for that alliteration.

Baby-Giles is the new Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce:

He has no compunctions about boasting his many professional achievements:

Wesley: “Of course, training procedures have been updated quite a bit since your day. Much greater emphasis on field work.”

Giles: “Really?”

Wesley: “Oh yes. Not all books and theory nowadays. I have, in fact, faced two vampires myself. Under controlled circumstances, of course.”

Giles: “You’re in no dangers of finding those here.”

Wesley: “Vampires?”

Giles: “Controlled circumstances.”

Buffy comes in, and she’s not thrilled to see Wesley:

Buffy: “New Watcher?”

Giles: “New Watcher.”

Wesley wants to know everything about the patrol from the night before. She tells him there were vampires and she killed them. Also, that they had swords. Wesley actually knows which vampire cult she’s run afoul of. Basically, they were vampires who dueled all the time and nearly wiped themselves out as a consequence. Both Buffy and Giles are grudgingly impressed that the dude is good at his job.

Wesley: “I didn’t get this job because of my looks.”

Buffy: “I really, really believe that.”

Oh, come on, Buffy. Have you even looked at him? His personality is unattractive, sure, but the container is juuuuuuust fine.

Wesley thinks the remaining members of the cult are after an amulet (conveniently located in one of Sunnydale’s many crypts), and he puts Buffy on the job. Then Faith enters:

Faith: “New Watcher?”

Buffy and Giles, in unison: “New Watcher.”

Faith: “Screw that.”

Then she leaves, and Giles and Wesley clean their glasses at exactly the same time.

This is one of my favorite, favorite introductions of a character in the entire series, because it shows exactly how to set up characterization with the tone of the scene. If Wesley’s arrival had been treated with grave sincerity, we would have seen him as important or skilled or respectable, instead of what he is: a throwback to the naive dedication with which season one Giles first approached the job. This drives home two things: that Giles is a much different person now,  and that Wesley is no threat to the general day-to-day operations of the Slayer. It also foreshadows that Wesley can (and will) change, albeit on the spin-off, Angel.

So, Buffy follows Faith, who wants to know why Buffy is listening to their new Watcher. This is the exchange:

Faith: “We’re Slayers, girlfriend! The chosen two! Why should we let him take the fun out of it?”

Buffy: “Oh, that would be tragic. Taking the fun out of slaying, stabbing, beheading…”

Faith: “Oh, like you don’t dig it.”

Buffy: “I don’t.”

Faith: “You’re a liar. I’ve seen you. Tell me staking a vamp doesn’t get you a little bit juiced. Come on. Say it. You can’t fool me. The look in your eyes right after a kill? You just get hungry for more.”

Buffy: “You’re way off base.”

Faith: “Tell me that if you don’t get in a good slaying, after a while you just start itching for some vamp to show up so you can give ‘em a good… [grunt].”

Buffy: “Again with the grunting. You realize I’m not comfortable with this.”

Faith: “Hey, slaying’s what we were built for. If you’re not enjoying it, you’re doing something wrong.”

Hey, my asexual readers, I bet you recognize this conversation. Throughout this dialogue, Faith’s lines are written and delivered in a sexually-charged way, like they almost always are. This gives us a good basis for an asexual or demisexual Buffy head canon, if we wanted to steer that way. I digress. But let’s remember this exchange at the end of the next episode, because we are going to have a field day with it later when we talk about how #1, #6, and #32 all collide into a big splotch of fuckery in the Buffy/Faith dynamic.

So, it’s night at the tomb where the amulet is being kept. And it actually looks a lot like the tomb from the first episode of Dark Shadows. I wonder if that’s intentional. Buffy finds the amulet, but she has to hide when the vampire cult shows up. I’m rolling my eyes pretty heavily here; she’s reaching for the amulet when she hears the voices of the cult members coming in, but she leaves it behind and hides. It would have taken no time to take the amulet with her. But whatever. Faith shows up and they pursue the vampires, who drop down a manhole. Faith wants to follow them, but Buffy thinks it’s too risky. They have no idea what’s waiting for them at the bottom of the hole, or any idea of how to escape once they get down there.

Faith: “I don’t know how many’s down there, but I want to find out. And I’ll know when I land. And if you don’t come in after me, I might die.”

Faith recklessly jumps down the hole, and Buffy is forced to follow her.

At the library, Wesley has taken all of the Watcher journals that Giles has, including the one he’d been keeping about Buffy.

Wesley: “Oh yes. Here’s your first entry. ‘Slayer is willful and insolent.’ That would be our girl, wouldn’t it?”

Giles: “You have to get to know her.”

Wesley: “‘Her abuse of the English language is such that I understand only every other sentence.’ This is going to make fascinating reading.”

Giles says Buffy should have returned from the amulet mission, but Wesley has the whole thing planned down to the minute. He’s confident that she’ll pull it all off exactly according to plan.

So, this scene gives us even more of a chance to see not only Wesley characterization, but how much Giles’s characterization has grown since season one, and that promise that Wesley will continue to grow as a character (though not in an identical path to Giles’s arc).

Meanwhile, the whole “according to plan” thing is not exactly working out. Buffy and Faith are underground, surrounded and outnumbered. As Slayers, they work together pretty well, though to be honest, Buffy is clearly picking up a little slack on Faith’s end in this fight. While Buffy is nearly drowned by one of the vampire cultists, another vampire just restrains Faith, which, you know. It’s a good thing for Faith that they’re an honorable, one-on-one kind of vampire cult, or she would be dead. Buffy manages to get the amulet and the two remaining vamps scatter.

Faith: “Tell me you don’t get off on this.”

Buffy: “Didn’t suck.”

So, once again, sexualization of violence. Do we have a number for that? Or does it fit under a different item? Let me know in the comments.

At the library, Wesley checks out the amulet and says yeah, good job, if it’s actually authentic. But Giles, because he’s grown as a character and isn’t at all like the shitty, shitty Watchers anymore, asks Buffy if she’s okay. And Buffy is like, thanks for asking, because Wesley is a dick and he didn’t even care if she got hurt. When she tells Giles she wants to talk to him, Wesley forbids her from talking to him except for about library books. Which, of course, Buffy ignores and says she’ll just talk to him later.

Wesley: “You’re not helping.”

Giles: “I know. I feel just sick about it.”

Now is a good time to ask this question: how is Wesley’s constant presence at the high school explained? Is it ever? I honestly don’t remember if it’s ever even addressed. Giles is clearly still the librarian, so he has a reason to be at the school apart from, “this is simpler for the plot of the show.” Why is Wesley there? I went to school in the ’90s. People had to sign in even back then. Is no one in the office questioning why this random dude is just showing up every single day? Why don’t we get to be in on the secret? I’m going to keep my eye out for an explanation because it’s possible I’m just forgetting, but I find that super unlikely, considering how much I live, sleep, and breathe Buffy.

Then again, all of these recaps go like

Me: There’s no way I could possibly forget this inconsequetial detail.

Also Me: Wow, I never noticed that before!

In science class, Buffy is super psyched about how Faith is opening her eyes to the awesomeness of being a Slayer. Willow tries to say she identifies with the feeling because of magic, but Buffy tells her it’s a Slayer thing and she wouldn’t understand. Willow and Xander are like, you know, can we talk about this later? We have this important test to take and you’ve already been warned by the teacher to like, not talk at least once. We also find out that Buffy blew off Willow to patrol with Faith, and that Xander has developed a facial tick in response to Faith’s name.

Faith comes to the window of the science room and draws a little heart with a line in it to indicate staking. And tell me this is not the slashiest thing ever:

Buffy decides to blow off the chem test (despite saying several times that it’s super important that she pass it) and climbs out the window with Faith.

Faith tells Buffy that she found a nest of vampires, so we cut to Faith and Buffy crashing through a window and surprise attacking a bunch of vamps who are laying on the floor like it’s kindergarten nap time:

Look at the guy in the back. He’s even reading them a story.

That night, Buffy and Faith celebrate their successful Slay by dancing together at The Bronze. And yes, they’re dancing together. At least twice they’re holding hands. And because they’re two girls dancing together, a group of guys forms around them. Buffy sees Angel and runs off the dance floor to jump into his arms and straddle him, while Faith grinds up on like four dudes at once. Buffy makes it clear that she’s a one-vampire woman, because it’s absolutely crucial that we know that she would never, ever, flirt with a bunch of guys the way Faith is doing right now.

Angel takes Buffy aside to ask her about the amulet, and for the first time watching this I notice that Buffy has a huge fucking gash on her arm that is wet and smeared with blood. And guys were like, dancing with her out there, trying to get on her? Man, universal precautions, guys. I’m also interested to know why Angel is seemingly unconcerned with a bleeding wound. You’d think he’d at least be distracted by how tasty it looks.

Wesley arrives to chastise Buffy for not leaving him a contact number, and Angel lectures him about not keeping the amulet safe enough. Buffy takes it from Wesley and gives it to Angel, leaving Wesley hopelessly out of the loop as to how things are done in this joint. Then Buffy gets Faith and they leave.

Cut to HOLY SHIT:

I’m not going to fat shame this guy. I don’t know his life. But I am going to question why he’s sitting in a hot tub full of chili. And why they’re basting him, apparently. Is this a vampire or a recipe?

Big Guy is really, really upset that he doesn’t have his amulet. There are charming fart noises in this scene, because obviously anyone who is fat is smelly and can’t control their gas. I know this to be true because at least one Twitter troll per day tells me that I’m fat and smelly and can’t control my gas.

Once again, Faith wants to go in, guns blazing, despite the fact that they don’t know what scary powers Fat Vampire Guy has. They weren’t there to see him use some kind of tractor beam thing to grab a vampire and break his neck. Of course, Faith’s argument is couched in innuendo, as always:

Faith: “I say we take ‘em all. Hard and fast. Now.”

We get it. We get that we’re supposed to equate sex with violence. We don’t need that impressed upon us further.

Luckily, Buffy’s cooler head prevails and she convinces Faith not to run recklessly into a warehouse full of vampires. But then Faith sees a sporting goods store across the street and–

Wait.

This warehouse full of vampires is near a main shopping hub? Sunnydale. You’re killing me.  Willy’s out there with a bar that’s got a freaking sign on it and just anyone could mosey in at any time. Massive vampires are taking chili baths just feet from where other people buy ping pong balls. How is Sunnydale not more open and aware of the spooky shit that happens in their midst? Why are they all pretending not to see it?

Anyway, Faith convinces Buffy to rob the sporting goods store:

Faith: “When are you gonna get this, B? The life of a Slayer is very simple. Want. Take. Have.”

It annoys me to the backs of my teeth that Faith thinks she’s going to give Buffy Slayer lessons. Buffy has been a Slayer for way longer than Faith. This is like when a new person starts working in your office and three weeks later tries to tell you that you’re using the copy machine wrong.

Anyway, Buffy decides that yeah, want, take, have is a good idea, and they start smashing shit up and stealing weapons. They’re interrupted when the police arrive and arrest them, with Faith making suggestive remarks the whole time, of course. Buffy and Faith escape the back of the cop car by using their Slayer strength to kick the backseat partition in and knock out the cops. The car crashes, and Buffy and Faith somehow get out and get the handcuff key while they’ve both still got their hands cuffed behind their backs.

The next morning, Buffy frantically scans the newspaper for any mention of like, maybe cops who died in a grisly car accident or escaped prisoners or something, while Joyce talks about making waffles. There’s nothing in the paper, apparently, but Buffy is still shaken.

At City Hall, The Mayor finishes up a photo op with some scouts, then light-proofs his office so Mr. Trick can come in and give him the scoop on the vampire cult guys. But one of the vampire cult guys is hiding in The Mayor’s curio cabinet of weird shit, and bursts out, tackling The Mayor and trying to skewer him with a sword. Mr. Trick punches the vampire guy in the head, neatly solving that problem.

Mr. Trick: “Why they gotta always be using swords? It’s called an uzi, chump. Would’ve saved your ass right about now.”

This is why Mr. Trick is the most wasted villain of the series, seriously. He could have owned Sunnydale.

The Mayor asks the assistant guy (who I guess is actually the deputy mayor and his name is Allan? I guess I didn’t pay that much attention to him before) how the vampire dude got in, and of course he’s all cagey like, don’t blame me. So I definitely blame you, Allan. I blame you because you look guilty as fuck.

At the warehouse, Chili Con Vampire is still being moistened and is also still super angry about the amulet. He says something about his oldest enemy being close to having ultimate power, so I’m assuming he’s in Sunnydale specifically to fuck up The Mayor’s plans. Man, I wish I wasn’t on the outside, here. I would just tell my Slayers, you know, guys, this is a problem that is about to solve itself. At the end they would still have a demon to deal with, but it would be more convenient than having two demons to deal with, right? We can economize this.

Anyway, he tells his vampire people to kill the Slayers and bring him the two Watchers.

In Buffy’s room, Willow gives Buffy a protection spell charm bag that she made. She’s looking forward to patrolling with Buffy later that night, but Buffy is like, yeah, you shouldn’t go. And Willow is super hurt because she knows Buffy wants to hang out with Faith instead. And that’s just what happens. Faith shows up, and Buffy ditches Willow.

Buffy and Faith are out patrolling with Faith’s brand new compound bow that she went back to the sporting goods store to steal again, when a vampire gets the drop on them, literally, from the top of a building. And guess what, Faith? A full-size compound bow is not for fighting in close quarters. It is a range weapon. Have you never played any FPSs or RPGs?

We cut to Wesley, being an ass:

Wesley: “I didn’t say you have emotional problems. I said you had an emotional problem. It’s quite different.”

Giles: “My…attachment to the Slayer is not a problem. In point of fact it’s been a very useful–”

Wesley: “The way you’ve handled this assignment has been something of an embarrassment to the council.”

Giles: “If you want to criticize my methods, fine. But you can keep your snide remarks to yourself. And while you’re at it, don’t criticize my methods.”

But of course he does, going on and on about how Giles did okay, but it’s time for someone else to take over. Upon spying a group of the cult vampires standing just outside the window, Giles agrees that it’s a good idea.

Buffy is fighting a vampire while Faith fights with her shitty choice of weaponry. She finally gives up and they’re both fighting the vampires. It’s a tense situation and poor deputy mayor Allan ends up in it. Buffy yells to Faith to warn her, but it’s too late, and Faith stakes the totally human Allan right in the heart. Faith freezes and Buffy panics, and Allan dies in front of them, blood trickling out of his mouth. In movies and tv, if blood comes out of your mouth, you die. Them’s the rules.

Faith pulls Buffy away from the dead body, but Buffy is in shock and unsure of what to do. She and Faith become separated, and Buffy runs into Angel, who has the most ridiculous hair of all time. He tells her that the vampires have Giles. I mean, they have Wesley, too, but even Angel doesn’t give a shit about Wesley. Meanwhile, Faith goes back to the body.

Meanwhile, the soupy vampire is super gross.

Soups McGee: “The front! The front! Moisten the front.”

I’m a good person. I don’t deserve this.

Wesley is freaking the fuck out, and Giles is not. Dealing with wimpy, ‘fraidy cat Wesley has drained Giles’s tank of fucks to give right on down to empty:

Chili Pot: “You know what I want.”

Giles: “If it’s for me to scrub those hard to reach areas, I’d like to request you kill me now.”

Wesley is like, what the hell are you doing, and Giles is like, yeah, they’re going to kill us anyway. At the slightest mention of torture, Wesley starts singing like a canary. He tells Chili Pot that he knows who has the amulet, but he doesn’t remember the name of the guy who took it. Then Angel is like, his name is Angel and busts in like a rock star. He starts beating everyone up, and Buffy comes in and she’s beating everyone up, and Giles starts beating Wesley up–okay, I made that part up. But he does fight, with a sword, like a total badass, to protect the little shit who came and took his job.

So, Campbell’s Condense Vampire uses his vampire magnet power to pull Angel to him and is about to break his neck when Buffy uses some exposed wiring to electrocute the dude. I guess that’s one of downsides of living in a vat of liquid. As he’s basically like, good job, idiots, you killed me and now a way worse thing is going to happen.

Cut to The Mayor changing in a pentagram of salt, surrounded by candles. Mr. Trick is there, with the vampire who tried to attack them earlier in a cage. There’s a big, dramatic earthquake, shit shakes off the walls, etc.

The Mayor: “I don’t understand why Allan would miss this. He’s usually so punctual.”

Mr. Trick looks at him like he wants to say, “Fuck Allan,” but instead he asks if the ritual worked. The Mayor decides to test it out. He gives the vampire in the cage a sword and tells Mr. Trick to open it. When he does, the vampire runs out and carves a ditch right down the median of The Mayor’s head:

This doesn’t kill him. The two halves just stick right back together, and The Mayor checks “become invincible” off his to-do list.

Now he’s invincible until “the ascension”, so our heroes actually did drop the ball. They went after the wrong guy and helped the really, really bad guy level up.

At the motel the next morning, Faith is scrubbing blood out of her t-shirt with a toothbrush when Buffy arrives. She tells Faith they need to talk about what they’re going to do. She says being a Slayer isn’t about being a killer, and they need to be there for each other to go through all of this. Faith is like, nah, that’s not for me, and Buffy tells her that eventually, they’re going to find a body.

Faith: “Okay. This is the last time we’re gonna have this conversation, and we’re not even having it right now, you understand me? There is no body. I took it, weighted it, and dumped it. Body doesn’t exist.”

Buffy was not expecting this kind of casual acceptance of accidental human killing. She’s like:

Buffy: “Faith, you don’t get it. You killed a man.”

Faith: “No, you don’t get it. I don’t care.”

And that’s where the episode ends.

Now, let’s talk a minute about Faith becoming evil and why that happens. We know that Faith is freaked out by the fact that she killed a guy. We see it when she goes back to the body, the way she’s afraid to touch it, etc. She does care. But because of who she is and how she is, she’s going to pretend that it doesn’t bother her. Buffy’s super morality just pushes Faith to continue denying and denying, until she legitimately doesn’t care that she’s evil.

I’m getting ahead of us, though. We’re going to have a serious grown-up conversation about how this all plays out in the next recap. While this isn’t two-parter, it definitely needs to be consumed as though it and the next one are a single story.

True Blood Twosday: S02E10, “New World in My View” and S02E11, “Frenzy.”

As promised, here are two files for the next two episodes. Download S02E10 here, and S02E11 here. Press play when the HBO sound/logo fade. Also, if they don’t synch up perfectly, it might be okay. I’m usually high when I make these, so the brain takes a second to catch the mouth up on what’s going on.

True Blood Phlegmsday

Hey guys! True Blood Tuesday is canceled this week. I can’t get through recording it with this phlegmy cough. I’ll do two episodes next week as a bonus, though!

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S03E13: “The Zeppo”

In every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone just now realized she was missing a comma after the introductory phrase in this intro. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight/bi female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!
The Watchers have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Vampire bites, even very brief ones, are 99.8% fatal.

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.

You know how I come off as absolutely hating Xander? Well, most of the time I really just loathe Xander. This time, though, I’m so grateful for him, because this episode is one of the highlights of the series.

We open on the Scoobies (and Faith this time!) fighting ugly monsters in a cave. Willow used a spell to make a cloud because low-visibility was somehow necessary for this fight. She mentions that this time it went better because nothing melted. The monsters they were fighting are dead now, but that’s not the end of the problem. Now that he’s fired, Giles is even more out of the loop, so he has no idea why there’s a nest of these beasties hanging out.

Now that Giles is unemployed, he has begun transitioning into the hottest of all of his incarnations: weekend-chores-dad edition:

How could anyone resist that gray fleece? Casual Giles is proof of #30.

Xander emerges from the pile of trash he’s been hiding in, and his cowardice gives Buffy and Faith some concerns:

Buffy: “Maybe you shouldn’t be leaping into the fray like that. Maybe you should be…fray adjacent.”

Xander: “Excuse me? Who at a crucial moment distracted the lead demon by allowing her to pummel him about the head?”

Faith: “Yeah, that was real manly, the way you shrieked and all.”

Buffy asks if they should burn the bodies, and Willow shocks them all by making a dark joke about marshmallows.

Willow: “Occasionally, I’m callous and strange.”

Giles is less concerned with how to get rid of the dead monsters and more with whether or not there are going to be more of these things. As they leave, Giles pulls Xander aside and suggests he stay in the background during the fighting. When the guy who gets knocked unconscious by a slight breeze thinks you might be in grave peril, maybe it’s time to listen.

The next day at school, Xander pathetically tries to get some varsity-jacketed guys to include him in their casual tossing of a football. When they finally do, he fumbles it and it hits a guy who is clearly too old to be going to high school:

Like, is this a 21 Jump Street thing? This guy is in his thirties, at least. He was also on Kindred: The Embraced. It was a whole Romeo & Juliet thing. Least interesting storyline of the show.

Anyway, Xander messed up the dude’s lunch, so dude asks if Xander is the r-word. You know, twenty odd years later, I’m surprised by how much this shocks me, when it was a fairly widespread and almost socially acceptable word to use as an insult. So, it doesn’t surprise me when it gets played off as a joke. Xander offers to buy the guy a soda as an apology for hitting him with the football, but the guy is more interested in rounding up his buddies and beating up Xander, who walks away legitimately terrified.

But notice the poster on the wall behind the guy in the screencap? It’s another anti-smoking poster! We know this guy is a bad dude, because we’re getting a #22 clue right in the frame!

Luckily for Xander, his ex-girlfriend saw everything:

Cordelia: “Boy, of all the humiliations you’ve had that I’ve witness…that was the latest.”

She doesn’t stop there with the hatefest:

Cordelia: “It must be really hard when all your friends have like, super powers. Slayer, werewolf, witches, vampires, and you’re like this little nothing.”

When Xander argues that he’s an integral part of the group, Cordelia tells him he’s the Zeppo. THEY SAID THE NAME OF THE THING IN THE THING! Hey, how does Cordelia have even a passing acquaintance with the Marx Brothers? She seems like the kind of person who would get Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin mixed up, so I’m calling #24.

Cordelia also says that Jack, the terrifying bully guy, repeated 12th grade three times, so maybe that’s why he looks so old.

In the cafeteria, Xander interrogates Oz about what makes a person cool. Realizing that Oz is cool because he’s in a band, Xander decides he needs to learn to play an instrument.

Xander: “Is it hard to play guitar?’

Oz: “Not the way I play it.”

Dan Vebber, who wrote this episode, has a flair for some Marx Brothers-style jokes, I see. Xander is pretty sure he can be cool, if he just figures out how.

In the library, Giles is back in the tweed and glasses. Enjoy it while it lasts. He thinks the monsters they killed at the beginning of the episode are going to open the Hellmouth.

Buffy: “The Hellmouth? The one that opens…”

Giles: “About twenty feet from where you’re standing.”

From his cage, werewolfed-out Oz howls mournfully. But when we cut to the next scene, it’s still clearly daytime out, so I’m not sure what’s up with the werewolfing?

Outside, Buffy explains to Willow that the if they don’t stop the Hellmouth from opening, the world is going to be flooded with demons. This time, things are really bad, and they have to get their butts in gear on the research front. Just as they approach the school building, Xander pulls up in a classic convertible. It looks to be a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air, but I have to admit I’m not as good with visual identification of ’50s Chevy convertibles as I am with ’70s Chevy convertibles, which are by far the cooler cars that will get you maximum trim.

Buffy: “What is this?”

Xander: “What do you mean, what is it? It’s my thing.”

Willow: “Your thing?”

Xander: “My thing.”

Buffy: “Is this a penis metaphor?”

Xander: “It’s my thing that makes me cool. You know, that makes me unique. I’m car guy. Guy with a car.”

Xander’s uncle got too many DUIs to drive anymore, so he loaned his classic convertible that has clearly been lovingly cared for to a newly licensed driver. I’m guessing Uncle Rory was not sober when he made this decision, either.

Buffy and Willow aren’t as enthusiastic about his new car as Xander is, but they explain that a really big evil is coming:

Buffy: “Biggest. Maybe more than I can handle.”

Xander: “We’ll handle it together. You know I’m here for you. Just tell me what I can do.”

Cut to Xander at the Espresso Pump–wait, is this the first time we’re seeing the Espresso Pump in the series?! Xander is picking up donuts for his evil-fighting friends when Cordelia wanders in and points out yet again that he’s just the errand boy while everyone else is doing the hard work. She tells Xander that even though he has a new car, he’s not a whole new person, and nobody cares about him. Just then, a hot blonde walks up and asks Xander if the car belongs to him. She says it’s a ’57 Chevy Bel Air, so I was only off by a year and some more exaggerated tail fins.

This girl is really into cars, which Xander learns later when he’s bored out of his gord at the Bronze. She’s giving him a detailed list of all the classic cars owned by the guys she’s dated before when Angel comes in. Xander desperately tries to get Angel to give him an out, but Angel is kind of busy with the apocalypse. He tells Xander to stay out of harm’s way. When that doesn’t work, the girl asks Xander to take her for another drive. But Xander is  so distracted by getting the brush off from Angel and the rest of the gang that he isn’t paying attention when he pulls out of his parking space, and he crashes into the car in front of him. Unfortunately, that car is owned by the possibly-undercover-cop-posing-as-a-high-school-student-even-though-he’s-pushing-forty guy from the beginning of the episode.

In the library, Oz-the-werewolf is freaking out. So are the humans. Despite the end of the world being at hand, the council still won’t talk to Giles. He’s going to have to take other measures:

Willow: “Where are you going?”

Giles: “Um, to try and contact the spirit guides. They exist out of time, but have knowledge of the future. I have no idea if they’ll respond to my efforts, but I have to try. All we know is that the fate of the entire world rests on it. Did you eat all the jellies?”

Buffy: “Did you want a jelly?”

Giles: “I always have a jelly. I’m always the one that says ‘let’s have a jelly in the mix.’”

Willow: “We’re sorry. Buffy had three.”

Giles starts to say something about Xander making another donut run, but Buffy stops him. She doesn’t want him involved in anything, for his own safety. So at this point, Xander can’t be trusted to stay safe on a donut run.

That might be an accurate assessment of the situation, however, because he’s currently confronting scary bully guy, who has a freaking bowie knife. That he’s named “Katie.” They’re about to get in a real bad fight when a cop comes up and recognizes the bully. He calls him O’Toole, so now I have a name to put to him. I think his name got mentioned before, but I spaced out on it. Anyway, Xander tells the cop that he and O’Toole were just messing around. This impresses O’Toole, who suggests they go “pick up the boys” and “cruise,” which is apparently a thing people say. Xander, car girl, and O’Toole pile into the convertible and drive off.

Cut to one of Sunnydale’s many cemeteries, where O’Toole is doing some kind of ritual around a grave.  Then an honest-to-god Zombie in a varsity jacket climbs out of the ground. He’s Big Bob, and he’s psyched to see O’Toole. Car girl, however, is less psyched to see Bob. She runs away screaming while the undead celebrates with his friend.

Big Bob: “How long I been down?”

O’Toole: “Eight months. I had to wait ’til the stars aligned.”

Big Bob: “Oh, eight months, I got some catching up to do. Whoa, Walker Texas Ranger. You been taping ‘em?”

O’Toole: “Every ep.”

They’re going to pick up the other guys. Who are also dead and psyched to be raised.

Speaking of raising the dead, Giles is doing some spooky magic in the cemetery as well. He argues with the spirit guide in Latin. They’re not inclined to do any guiding, which makes their name seem a bit counterintuitive. That’s when Xander stumbles upon Giles and asks him if he needs any help. Of course Giles doesn’t, and of course Xander couldn’t help talk to spirit guides, anyway, but he wants an excuse to get away from the dangerous bully and the dead guys waiting to hang out with him. Giles sends Xander away with a dire warning about everyone being called to fight or something like that.

At Willy’s, Buffy sits behind the bar with him as he bleeds all over himself. The place is trashed; someone was there looking for Angel. The battered barkeep tells her that the Hellmouth is going to open that very night, and that she should spend her last night on earth with Angel.

Xander is spending his last night on earth with zombies who want girls, Taco Bell, and revenge. One of them was thrown off a bridge by what sounds like a rival gang. Another was shot while trying to rob a liquor store. They tell Xander that they’re going to “bake a cake,” then take him to break into a hardware store. As he sits behind the wheel of the car, panicking about the fact that he’s now an accessory to a break-in, he sees Willow leave the Magic Box. She tells him that the big scary is happening tonight, but he doesn’t know what it is and she doesn’t have time to explain. She has to get back to Buffy and do a protection spell. She leaves Xander there with his new gang. They want to initiate him…by killing him.

See, the whole thing with this gang is that they’re all dead. O’Toole raises them. He’s been dead for three weeks, he just looks a lot better than the other guys because he was raised within ten minutes of dying. Xander runs away (and sprints right through the Espresso Pump, which is a business I’ve never really understood. It doesn’t have any doors or windows? No grates or shutters? They just stretch a chain over the entrance and hope it’s all going to work out?

Faith is in a park, fighting a demon like the one from the beginning of the episode. Xander sees that Faith definitely doesn’t have the upper hand, so he drives his car into the demon and tells Faith to get in. They speed back to the motel.

Faith: “She got me really wound up. A fight like that and no kill…I’m about ready to pop.”

“Pop” gets used a lot to mean something sexual in Buffy lingo, doesn’t it? Or is it just two instances I can think of, both of them Faith? Actually, yeah. Maybe it was two times and both times were Faith.

But that doesn’t matter right now, because Xander is about to lose his virginity, and we witness the tender moment via a reflection in the TV screen, complete with some softcore Cinemax music. Then she kicks him out the door naked when they’re all done.

In the library, Oz is getting too rowdy to handle. Giles is going to open the cage for some reason, though. Willow is there with the tranqulizer gun. She shoots Oz, but it doesn’t take effect, and Giles has to physically restrain him so Willow can get another shot off. Wait, Giles is strong enough to physically restrain a furious, rampaging werewolf? I’ll be in my bunk.

Back at the car, Xander finally gets around to looking in the bags of stuff the zombies put in it. Surprise! It’s bomb supplies.

Xander: “Hey. They’re not baking any cake.”

He drives back to the hardware store:

Xander: “Long gone. Probably loaded with supplies. Gotta think. I can’t believe I had sex. Okay, bombs.”

I love this part, because I so identify with the “I can’t believe I had sex” thing. After I had sex for the first time, I walked around for like a day thinking that. It seemed so out of the realm of the possible for a teenager.

Xander decides that Buffy will know what to do, but when we cut to Buffy, she’s telling Angel that she doesn’t know what to do. Everything is super dramatic. Angel is going to sacrifice himself to stop the evil that we have no idea about. There’s all this I can’t lose you, I can’t watch you die going on, with the romantic sadness music and everything. It all grinds to a halt when Xander clears his throat. He stands awkwardly in the door and tries to explain that there’s this bomb-making zombie plot happening, but he realizes it’s not so big in the grand scheme of what Buffy has going on, so he leaves.

At the school, Giles is doing some kind of dangerous spell over the hell mouth. Willow comes in and says she moved Oz and hopes he’s somewhere secure. In the school basement, the zombies are building their bomb.

Out on the road, Xander spots the zombies. He grabs one of them and drags it alongside the car as he speeds away. He demands to know where the bomb is, and the zombie tells him it’s at the high school. Then Xander accidentally decapitates the zombie by running into a mailbox. Screaming like he’s just seen a mouse in the kitchen, he drives away to the school. Once there, he finds the basement locked and the remaining zombies in hot pursuit.

In the library, the Hellmouth has opened, and this has come out:

You probably can’t tell from the screencap, but the monsters fulfill our #7.

Xander runs from the zombies through the school. He crushes Big Bob under a vending machine, and another runs away only to be intercepted by the demons everyone was fighting in the first scene of the episode. Xander is still oblivious to the peril in the library, until a big tentacle weiner monster busts through the wall at him. He runs to boiler room, where he finds the bomb:

Xander: “Less than two minutes. Dumb guy, little bomb. How hard can it be?”

I’m so bummed, because my internet just crapped out so I can’t get a picture of it, but on the back of the boiler room door there’s a poster that says “First Aid and Choking”. Like, who the fuck is going to choke in the boiler room? Why is that poster there?

Before Xander can disable the bomb, O’Toole attacks him. He talks a tough game, but Xander reminds him that their time is kind of running out. Xander manages to get between O’Toole and the door, then has one of the most badass Xander moments of all time:

Xander: “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Can I get by him? Get up the stairs, out of the building? Seconds ticking away? I dont’ love your chances.”

O’Toole: “Then you’ll die, too.”

Xander: “Yeah, looks like. So I guess the question really is… who has less fear?”

O’Toole: “I’m not afraid to die. I’m already dead.”

Xander: “Yeah, but this is different. Being blowed up isn’t walking around and drinking with your buddies dead. It’s little bits being swept up by a janitor dead, and I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

O’Toole: “Are you?”

Xander: “I like the quiet.”

WTF, Xander just comes out of nowhere with the action hero ambivalence to death. Where has he been hiding that one?

In the library, everyone is still fighting the monster, unaware that a bomb is going to go off in eleven seconds. As the clock ticks down, O’Toole disables the bomb. Xander tells him that he doesn’t want to see him at the high school again, and leaves. Alone in the boiler room, O’Toole begins to monologue:

O’Toole: “I’m not going anywhere, Harris. The first time you turn your back–”

And then he opens the door and Oz jumps in. There is much screaming and wet tearing sounds.

The next day, everyone is bruised and beaten up, struggling with the aftermath of the violence they experienced and wrought. There’s a brief reconciliation moment between Buffy and Giles that I assume is supposed to gloss over the shit from the last episode, but it’s only two lines and it kind of doesn’t satisfy:

Buffy: “I don’t know how you managed. It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Giles: “Stupidest. But the world continues to turn.”

Meh. I mean, I’ll grudgingly acknowledge that there’s a little basis for #2 in the way he reacts to the praise, but it doesn’t fix all that betrayal from the last episode. There wasn’t room to deal with it in this episode, but maybe there should have been something in between that one and this one, just so we could have seen some believable forgiveness with our own eyes?

Xander comes up to the table and Willow tells him he’s lucky not to have been there the night before. Xander doesn’t mention what happened to him, and pretends everything was just peaceful and fine.

Xander: “Well, uh, give me the quiet life. I’m gonna grab a snack, anyone want?”

Giles: “No, thank you.”

Xander: “Oz?”

Oz: “No. Oddly full today.”

As Xander walks away, he runs into Cordelia, and she tries her best to cut him down. He just smiles at her and walks away, while she stands there confused as to why she hasn’t been able to shake him.

So, in addition to the aforementioned I-need-more-than-just-these-two-lines lack of resolution from the previous episode, there’s just one other thing that rubs me the wrong way, and that’s Willow sitting at the picnic table and congratulating them all for saving the world, how no one will ever know they did it, etc. Yes, they were worried about Xander’s safety, and that’s why they kept him away, but I feel left out on his behalf. This episode actually gives me a lot of sympathy for Xander, in terms of being the only person in the group who doesn’t have much to offer. When the chips are down, he can do amazing stuff (see also: season six), but this episode drives home just how little recognition he gets. We often see him depicted as cowardly and useless, but this episode is really good at reminding you that even though he really is the odd man out, he has more courage than the rest of them. He’s willing to be there on the front lines, even though he doesn’t have any special power or strength to protect himself. This was the point in the series where I really started to soften toward Xander, even though he continues to be dickish and annoying through the rest of the show, right up until mid-season seven.

True Blood Tuesday S02E09 “I Will Rise Up”

Just in time, because I needed something to distract me. It’s True Blood Tuesday again, and you know what to do. Download here, press play when the HBO sound/logo fade. If you don’t get it synched up, that’s okay, because I’m the queen of delayed reaction.

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S03E12: “Helpless”

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone can’t think of anything witty because this episode is just too sad and frustrating. She will also recap every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer with an eye to the following themes:

Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
All the monsters look like wieners.
If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
Angel is a dick.
Harmony is the strongest female character on the show.
Team sports are portrayed in an extremely negative light.
Some of this shit is racist as fuck.
Science and technology are not to be trusted.
Mental illness is stigmatized.
Only Willow can use a computer.
Buffy’s strength is flexible at the plot’s convenience.
Cheap laughs and desperate grabs at plot plausibility are made through Xenophobia.
Oz is the Anti-Xander
Spike is capable of love despite his lack of soul
Don’t freaking tell me the vampires don’t need to breathe because they’re constantly out of frickin’ breath.
The foreshadowing on this show is freaking amazing.
Smoking is evil.
Despite praise for its positive portrayal of non-straight sexualities, some of this shit is homophobic as fuck.
How do these kids know all these outdated references, anyway?
Technology is used inconsistently as per its convenience in the script.
Sunnydale residents are no longer shocked by supernatural attacks.
Casual rape dismissal/victim blaming a-go-go
Snyder believes Buffy is a demon or other evil entity.
The Scoobies kind of help turn Jonathan into a bad guy.
This show caters to the straight female gaze like whoa.
Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world.
Faith is hyper-sexualized needlessly.
Slut shame!
The Watchers have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Vampire bites, even very brief ones, are 99.8% fatal.

Have I missed any that were added in past recaps? Let me know in the comments.  Even though I might forget that you mentioned it.

WARNING: Some people have mentioned they’re watching along with me, and that’s awesome, but I’ve seen the entire series already and I’ll probably mention things that happen in later seasons. So… you know, take that under consideration, if you’re a person who can’t enjoy something if you know future details about it.

Well, here we are. This is one of my very least favorite episodes. Let’s get it over with.

We open on a romantic, candle-lit training session between Buffy and Angel, which winds up with her straddling him and surprise surprise, it gets them all horny, so she has to leave. Angel asks Buffy if he’ll see her over the weekend, or if she has a date.

Buffy: “Actually, I do have a date. Older man. Very handsome. Likes it when I call him daddy.”

Angel: “Your father. It is your father, right?”

Behold, Tumblr. Buffy was making daddy jokes like eighteen years before you. No wonder I like this show so much.

Buffy tells Angel that her dad is taking her to the ice show for her birthday, because she could use some fun. Cut to the least fun thing I can think of: memorizing crystals and what they do. Giles is cranky because she won’t concentrate on learning about minerals. She’d rather be out, patrolling. Buffy blames her lack of concentration on Faith being flighty and taking off without giving them notice.

Giles: “Faith is not interested in proper training, so I must rely on you to keep up with yours.”

Buffy: “I hate being the good one.”

Giles asks Buffy why she’s so eager to get out and fight vampires, and Buffy realizes that she’s been unconciously giving a hand happy to a phallic piece of quartz. She says she has energy to burn off, because ha ha, sexual frustration.

Let’s talk about #1. The big bad of this season is The Mayor, right? But the big bad of the Angel/Buffy subplot is sex. Specifically, sexual pleasure. I don’t get it. Is the love between Buffy and Angel purer because they’re resisting temptation? Is it a truer love now that we’ve removed sexuality from the equation? Is that what we’re driving at? Also, since Buffy is sexually frustrated and wants to get out there and Slay as a result and sparring has replaced sex in Buffy and Angel’s relationship, does that mean sex and violence are interchangeable?

Giles ends the training by making Buffy concentrate on a blue crystal. Is staring at it going to make her learn about it, Giles? Really?

Buffy does get out to do some killing, but in the middle of her fight with a vampire, something goes wrong. She has a dizzy spell, just a moment that catches her off guard, and the vampire almost stakes her with her own stake. She headbutts him and he accidentally stakes himself.

At school the next day, Buffy is throwing knives in the library. Like you do. She tells Giles that something is wrong with her. He suggests she has the flu, and she freaks out because she doesn’t want to miss the ice show and quality time with her dad. Giles tells her that she should just take time off from patrolling to get some rest. That should be an alarm bell, Buffy. The dude who always is like, you’re not training enough, you have to be better at everything is like, “Hey, kick back a little, take a break.” Something is up.

Outside, Xander makes fun of Buffy for doing something as childish as going to an ice show, but Willow steps in with a defense.

Willow: “I went to Snoopy on Ice when I was little. My dad took me backstage and I got so scared I threw up on Woodstock.”

I guess that’s not really much of a defense, but good for you for trying, Willow.

Buffy says that she knows it’s kind of childish, but she likes it. You know what, Buffy? Fuck the haters. I used to love the ice stuff when I was in high school, too. One year, for Valentine’s day, my mom got me tickets to both nights of the ladies’ pro figure skating championships and it was amazing. I saw Katarina Witt, Denise Biellman, Yuka Sato…I mean, come the fuck on, who wouldn’t want to see them?

Xander thinks Buffy should have a party, but she’s like, nah, pass. She goes home and finds that her dad has sent her flowers and an apology letter about how work is more important than seeing his kid on her fucking birthday. HANK.

Joyce tries to make things better by offering to take Buffy to the ice show herself, but it’s not the show Buffy is going to miss. She says she’ll just have a quiet birthday.

At a ramshackle boarding house called The Sunnydale Arms, some guys are doing light rennovations. You know, bricking up windows and such. Like you do. They’re under the supervision of a stuffy British dude who is not Giles. He stares with dire import at a tall, locked crate and muses that the Slayer’s preparation is almost complete, muahahahaha.

Cut to the library, where Giles is unpacking crystals while Buffy tries to sell him the Icecapades as a fine cultural experience. He pointedly ignores her hints, so she has to be more direct.

Buffy: “If someone were free, they’d take their daughters or their student…or their Slayer.”

This episode really kicks off my rest-of-the-series-long discussion of #2, which I know squicks some people out, so feel free to ignore this paragraph. This is the first of several times that Giles rejects the role of stand-in father for Buffy. A lot of Giles’s characterization throughout the series is wrapped up in where he stands in the Slayer’s life, but when he’s given the opportunity to assume a fatherly role, he backs away from it.

Backs away from it so far, in fact, that he hypnotizes poor Buffy with that big blue crystal and injects her with something from old-timey syringe that’s so huge it would undoubtedly leave some kind of mark she would be bound to notice. After he’s all done with the sketchy injection, she snaps out of her trance and goes home.

The next day at school, Buffy asks Willow how Amy The Rat is doing. I think I’m going to refer to her like that forever now, because Amy abandoned her friends to be burned at the stake to save herself, and she never does anything not shitty to the Scoobies after she does become human again. So fuck you, Amy The Rat.

Where was I?

Oh, right. So, Willow hasn’t been able to turn Amy human again, but there’s apparently a wheel scenario. Right away, this strikes me as poor rat research on the parts of everyone involved. Hamsters run in wheels. Rats sleep in them.

Across the courtyard, they see Cordelia involved in an altercation with a male student who grabs her and pushes her against a tree. When Buffy tries to intervene, the guy shoves her to the ground, leaving Cordelia to chase the guy off with weak slaps.

Buffy finds Giles in the hallway:

Buffy: “Okay, I just got swatted down by some no-neck and rescued by Cordelia. What the hell is happening?”

Giles: “I’m sure it will sort itself out.”

Buffy: “Look, you’re not getting the big picture here. I have no strength. I have no cooridination. I throw knives like–”

Giles: “A girl?”

Buffy: “…Like I’m not the Slayer.”

Giles: “Look, Buffy, I, I assure you, um, given time we’ll get to the bottom of whatever’s causing this…anomly.”

Buffy: “Promise?”

Giles: “Yes. I give you my word.”

Look at Buffy’s face when Giles says she throws knives like a girl:

It’s so raw and upsetting that Giles says this to her. Probably every woman has had that feeling of betrayal and disappointment when a man whose opinion she values reveals that he doesn’t think of her as equal due to her gender. It hits you like a punch in the gut, and Sarah Michelle Gellar captured that horrible feeling in her expression.

How fucking dare you, Giles. How dare you make Buffy have that face. Especially when you’re the one causing the anomaly.

We cut straight from Giles’s shitty, worthless promise to him sitting on the couch at the Sunnydale Arms. He’s talking to the dire old guy who was being so intense before. Dire Old Guy gives some serious exposition about what’s going on. Buffy is undergoing a trial called the Cruciamentum, a tradition that’s been around for centuries and happens when (if?) a Slayer reaches the age of eighteen. Giles thinks it’s “archaic and cruel”, because it involves locking Buffy, sans powers, up with whatever monster is in the big box.

Giles: “If any one of the Council still had actual contact with a Slayer they would see, but I’m the one in the thick of it.”

Toot toot! #34 coming through! The Council doesn’t have any contact with the Slayer? I mean, we already kind of knew that because we’ve never seen them, but if their entire organization exists specifically to aid and guide the Slayer so that evil can be like, destroyed? Why no communication? And this little test makes absolutely no sense, anyway. Why would you take Buffy, who has already been training, who’s already literally saved the world more than once, and risk getting her killed? Because of tradition? “Hey, Dave, you’re a great employee, but you didn’t pass this totally nonsensical test that proves nothing but that without your skills you wouldn’t be skilled anymore, so we’re going to have to let you go and hire someone who doesn’t have your skills or experience, even though you were doing fine this whole time.” Sure, Watchers, sounds like a great plan. Except yours involves the death of a young woman.

Giles leaves (but is still totally on board with the dumb plan), and whatever is in the box starts freaking out and screaming. So two of the worker guys open the box and have to spoon feed this vampire some pills carefully and from a great distance:

True story: Jeff Kober, the actor who plays this vampire, was my favorite character on another vampire show, Kindred: The Embraced (I used to be heavy into the White Wolf RPGs, okay, let’s not make a big deal about what a nerd I am). Now, because he was on Kindred, and because I knew I’d seen the actor who played The Judge in season two on Kindred as well, I kind of got these two guys mixed up. I was like, “Oh, The Judge is the same guy as the vampire in the box, and he was also Daedelus on Kindred: The Embraced.” Except I was wrong. Brian Thompson played The Judge, not Kober. And I had seen Thompson on Kindred, but he didn’t play Daedelus, the sensitive Nosferatu. He was Eddie Fiori, the Primogen of the Brujah (who are basically the super fucking worst of all the V:tM clans. Fight me). But I was right about one thing: Kober does come back later on Buffy, as Rack, the magical drug dealer.

I’m glad we got that all straightened out.

So, what do the pills do for vampire Hannibal Lecter? They calm him down. So, I’m going to go ahead and hit this with a great big bag of #14. We’ve got a vampire in a straight-jacket, strapped down Hopkins-style, being dosed with pills to keep him from raging and becoming dangerous. You know, because he’s super, extra scary. Why? Because he’s crazy. It’s not enough to lock no-powers Buffy up with a regular vampire? Of course not! He has to be the extra dangerous type of danger that only mental illness can supply! Look at the straight-jacket!

At the library, the Scoobies have hit a wall with their research. This results in a disagreement between Oz and Xander over which type of Kryptonite did what to Superman. Willow tells Buffy that there might be an upside to being like everyone else, but before Buffy can explore the idea, Giles comes back and says he hasn’t found any answers, either.

Meanwhile, at the Sunnydale Arms, crazy scary super crazy scary asylum crazy vampire is freaking out and screaming for his pills. As one of the guys goes to get them, the vampire manages to pop the seams of his straight jacket and free himself. Then he lures the guy close enough to choke him out.

At Angel’s mansion, Buffy looks at a book that he’s given her for her birthday, but she can’t summon up the enthusiasm required to act excited about some dusty old book her bazillion year old boyfriend has given her. She tells him she’s freaked out about having lost her powers, and he tries to reassure her, but she’s given a lot of thought to how this could go bad.

Buffy: “I’ve seen too much. I know what goes bump in the night. Not being able to fight it…what if I just hide under my bed, all scared and helpless? Or what if I just become pathetic? Hanging out the old Slayer’s home, talking people’s ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed.”

But what Buffy’s really worried about is the fact that before she became the Slayer, she didn’t have anything to offer anybody. She asks Angel if he would still like her if she wasn’t the Slayer. This is what he says:

Angel: “I saw you before you became the Slayer.”

Buffy: “What?”

Angel: “I watched you. And I saw you called. It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. And you walked down the steps, and I loved you.”

Buffy: “Why?”

Angel: “‘Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see, and I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe. To warm it with my own.”

I know there is a strong contingency of you guys who hate when I defend Edward Cullen via comparison to Angel. Brace yourselves, because here it comes. Remember how it was “creepy” and “stalkerish” for Edward to watch Bella while she slept, and how unrealistic it was that he was so immediately in love with her? Okay, but he wasn’t immediately in love with her, and he only watched her sleep because he was trying to get the courage up to eat her. Because he didn’t want to date her. He wanted to eat her. Because he’s a vampire. Here we have Angel literally saying that he saw Buffy when she was like fifteen and instantly knew he was in love with her and had to protect her. Even knowing she was the Slayer and could take care of herself. I’m sticking to my “Edward was way less creepy than Angel” position, because he a) didn’t fall in love with Bella after seeing her walk down some stairs, and b) wanted to protect Bella from other vampires because she was just a human and couldn’t defend herself. Also, Edward has that Tuck, Everlasting thing on his side, where he’s been a high school student for his whole afterlife, and Angel was a grown man when he was turned.

Luckily, the script has something to offer to those of us who are really squicked out by Angel’s whole speech:

Buffy: “That’s beautiful. Or taken literally, incredibly gross.”

Angel: “I was just thinking that, too.”

I love it when this show ruins its own mood. God bless this show.

The guy who got choked out by the spooky crazy man vampire wakes up as a vampire and frees his vampire daddy, who chugs pills and makes a joke about how having a song stuck in his head makes him nuts. Har har. Giles shows up at the boarding house and finds Quentin (the older Watcher dude) is missing, and there’s blood everywhere. Giles immediately breaks a piece of wood to make a stake, because he’s a tweed-wearing warrior, but when he stumbles upon the body of the other worker dude, he nearly barfs, then runs away. Which I find pretty unrealistic, given some of the shit Giles has seen.

Out on the mean streets of Sunnydale, Buffy gets sexually harassed, to show us how vulnerable she is. She hears a humming noise and it freaks her out. It should because it’s Mr. Crazy Vampire, who tells her that he can’t remember the words to the song because his “mind isn’t what it used to be.”

Because he’s crazy, get it?

Buffy gets away from him by slipping her coat and running, but she’s so weak she can’t even climb a fence. She runs into the street and tries to get a car to stop for her. Luckily, Giles drives up in the nick of time to save her. He drives her back to the library, where he confesses everything. The injections, the ritual, and the vampire (who tortured and killed a bunch of people before being committed to an “asylum for the criminally insane”) who has now gotten loose. But Buffy doesn’t care about any of that. She’s kind of focused on the part where someone she trusted with her life put that life in danger:

Buffy: “You bastard. All this time you saw what it was doing to me. All this time and you didn’t say a word.”

Raise your hand if you want to hug Buffy and take her away from this fucking monster of a man right this very instant.

Cordelia comes in mid-argument. When Buffy asks her for a ride home, Cordelia, seeing how upset Buffy is, says “Of course.” Because Cordelia is a good person. Even though she still really hates Buffy, Cordelia sees a person in pain and wants to help. That’s what makes Cordelia such a great character.

At the Summers House, Joyce is balancing her checkbook when she hears a noise outside. And even though she knows she lives in Sunnydale, and even though she knows her daughter is a Slayer and monsters are everywhere, she still goes the fuck outside. #8, Joyce. #8. This is especially frustrating considering everything that happened in the last episode. Obviously, the noise is the vampire.

Buffy comes home and sadly/angrily swipes the flowers from her father off the counter and into the trash, because it’s symbolic of how all the men in her life betray her or whatever. Then she finds the front door open and a polaroid of Joyce being choked by the vampire. On the back, in metalic sharpie, it says “COME”.

Hey, wait. This vampire went and presumably purchased a polaroid camera and a metallic sharpie before coming after the Slayer? That is some Angelus-level planning.

Even though she’s regretably human, Buffy loads up a bag full of weapons and heads out. At the Sunnydale Arms, the vampire tells Joyce about the child abuse he endured at the hands of his mother. He says he plans to make Buffy into a vampire, in the hopes that Vamp!Buffy eats Joyce.

Buffy shows up to the Sunnydale Arms to find it booby trapped with bricked up walls and shit. At the school, Giles tells Quentin that he already told Buffy about the test. Quentin is like, that’s against the rules, yadda yadda and it doesn’t matter because Buffy is already at the Sunnydale Arms. He begins to tell Giles that it’s not their business to get involved, but Giles says:

Giles: “This is not business!”

Yeah, well, maybe you could have thought about that earlier, Giles.

Are you worried about our girl being in that house full of evil vampires? Well, you shouldn’t be. Because even though she can’t shoot her crossbow, she can trap a vampire under a book case and beat him until he’s unconscious. Buffy’s not just a strong Slayer. She’s also a smart one. That’s probably the point of the whole test, but it’s still a stupid test. The super scary crazy vampire catches Buffy and is extremely gross and sexual toward her, and also he speaks in fairytale references and seems to sexually enjoy pain, so obviously he’s bona fide insane and way more dangerous, right?

I hope I’ve adequately conveyed exactly how hard my eyes are rolling over this “mental illness in lieu of characterization” technique that’s going on here.

Buffy runs from him and finds a dark room to lock herself in. When she turns on the light, she finds the walls literally covered in polaroids of Joyce.

Now, hang on a second. When did he have time to do all of this? Also, how much did he spend on polaroid film? And how many cartridges did he get? This is all a little too complicated to be realistic, and I’m saying this about a show about vampires.

Buffy runs from the horrifying room and the vampire catches her. He’s about to bite her and turn her when he’s conveniently assailed by one of his weird headache spells. When he tries to take a pill, Buffy grabs them and runs, jumping down a laundry chute. She lands in the basement, where Joyce is tied to a chair. She runs to Joyce and tries to free her, but the vampire comes in. He staggers to the glass of water and pitcher sitting nearby and uses it to pop his pills. He realizes something is wrong, and Buffy shows him the empty vial of holy water in her pocket. And of course he ashes up and dies.

Buffy: “If I was at full Slayer power I would be punning right now.”

That’s still pretty funny, Buffy.

But one thing that’s always bothered me: when did she pour that water into the cup? We don’t see it happen. Joyce reacts to Buffy’s arrival as though this is the first time she’s seen her. There’s a brief shot of the door before the vampire bursts through it, but due to the quick-cut nature of the scene, it doesn’t seem like there’s time enough for her to get the vial and pour it into the cup. And if she had it in her pocket the whole time, why didn’t she use it on him one of the two times he grabbed her? It just feels like everything goes too fast, like, “Well, we’ve passed page fifty, so we need to get this wrapped up.”

Buffy can’t undo the knots holding Joyce, so she starts searching for anything to cut them with. I don’t know, maybe the sword we saw you put in your bag earlier? Before she can find anything, a vampire lunges at her. Giles is right on the vampire’s tail, and stakes him.

Holy shit, you guys. Giles got into a physical altercation and did not get knocked out. What a time to be alive. Giles gives Buffy a look that says, “Killing this vampire was step one in my please-forgive-me plan,” and Buffy gives him a look that says, “I appreciate you killing that vampire, but things are not going to be right with us for a while.”

In the library, Buffy is cut up all to fuck and barely holding it together while Quentin congratulates her on what a good job she did. She tells him he should leave town before she gets her powers back, because she is pissed that they endangered her mom. Quentin tells her that they can’t be fair because they’re fighting a war.

Giles: “You’re waging a war. She’s fighting it. There is a difference.”

Yes, thank you! THANK YOU. Thank you, Giles, for doing anything fucking useful or constructive. Still hate you right now, though, buddy.

Council dude says that because Giles has  “a father’s love” for Buffy, he’s not a good Watcher. Now, wait a damn minute here. A Watcher isn’t supposed to give a damn about his Slayer? How does that work? I mean, we know it happens, because in season five Giles mentions that he can’t find accounts of what happens when Slayers die, and his theory is that it’s too painful for the Watchers to write about it. Mentors have to have at least some investment in the people they’re mentoring, otherwise there’s no motivation. Even if there’s a common goal, the mentor/mentee relationship works best if there is, at the very least, mutual respect. This is just another example of how the council is cool with taking seasoned warriors and throwing them away like Dixie Cups. Another one is always going to pop up, right?

Council dude fires Giles and tells him he can’t have contact with Buffy anymore. He says he’s not going anywhere, and Council dude warns him not to interfere with the new Watcher. Through all of this, Buffy looks bewildered, like it’s the first time she’s ever considered that Giles could actually care about her. I’m extrapolating that into “the first time she’s ever considered that an adult could actually care about her,” because she seems real uncertain about Joyce’s love sometimes. Giles tends to her wounds and there’s like, a silent forgiveness vibe.

Back at the Summers house, Willow, Oz, Xander, and Joyce are joining Buffy for birthday brunch. Willow is freaking out that Giles is unemployed, but Buffy reminds them all that Giles is still the librarian and doesn’t plan on leaving. While she tells them all of this, she struggles to open a jar of peanut butter.

Xander: “Give ya a hand with that, little lady?”

Buffy: “You’re loving this far too much.”

Xander: “Admit it, sometimes you just need a big, strong man.”

But Xander is struggling with the jar himself when we fade to end titles and we hear:

Xander: “Uh, Will, give me a hand with that?”

Xander being insufferable is actually a really nice touch here. After the hell this show put us through, it’s nice to be reassured that everything is going to be business as usual again.

I’ve made it pretty clear that I dislike this episode, haven’t I? Well, the root of that is that I don’t like to see anyone betray Buffy. But it’s especially hard when it’s Giles, the only other person in their little group that knows what Buffy’s whole destiny thing is like, and how tough it is. And he chose protocol over her, even after all the shit the council has put him through. Sure, he’s been raised his whole life knowing this was going to be his calling, and maybe he was just like, you know, I better do this so I can stay in good with my employers. But no matter the reason, it will never be good enough for me. You knew better, Giles. It’s going to take me at least three more episodes to forgive you.

Okay, admittedly, this one might punch me right in the daddy issues. But fuck this episode. Seriously.