Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 72

Jealous Hater Book Club: Apolonia Chapter 15

Recently, a friend asked me if I had stopped doing these recaps. And I was like, yeah, I had to, because they were putting my dog to sleep. But I was just kidding. I’m hilarious like that.

Anyway, no I haven’t stopped, and I’m not going to stop, because I’m over halfway done with this, and there’s no sense in putting myself through the first 66% of the book and not finishing. It would be like letting a Civil War surgeon on a dirty battlefield half amputate my leg and then just leave the job unfinished.

A word of caution here: due to recent injury, I’m using dictation software to write this recap. So some stuff will probably look weird, and I will likely not catch it when I edit. It’s just my luck.

So, where we last left Rory, she had just found a dead body inside the crashed spaceship, and she’s afraid it’s Cy.

I felt over the rest of the body. The clothes were slick and tight fitting, not at all like Cy’s jeans and shirt. What was left of the hair was very short and spiky, different from Cy’s soft waves and curls. Exhausted in every way possible, my body collapsed against the wall, and I cried quietly, covering my face with my clean hand. It wasn’t him. Cy could still be alive.

Writing Tip: here’s a very common mistake. Word repetition. It happens to everyone, but sometimes it’s easily avoidable. You just have to be able to see it. Here, it’s pretty visible: “I felt over the rest of the body.” “[...] my body collapsed against the wall […]“. If you switch the second instance from “my body” to “I”, you solve the problem.

Cy was hurt somewhere in a strange ship, and Benji was outside, either captured or dead.

is the ship strange to Cy? It’s from his home planet, and it’s kind of like his girlfriend’s car, right? At the very least, Cy would have some kind of knowledge of what a spaceship is and how it might be laid out. He’s a space traveler himself, after all.

Rory thinks about how she ran away “like a coward.” If I recall correctly, she actually ran away like an idiot, straight into the spaceship that had just crashed. She thinks about how she isn’t brave and can’t save anybody, then she crawls over a bunch of bodies and into what she thinks is a control room.

“Cy?” I called out just loud enough for someone close to here, hoping I hadn’t missed his body in the black corridor. I stood up. My entire body complained.

Maguire should’ve complained about the shoddy job her proofer did. Two more “body”s on the same page, and a “bodies” I didn’t quote. She really deserves her money back on this.

My arm was covered in warm blood — my own. The rest of me was covered in the blood of others.

By some miracle, she doesn’t tack on something about her inconsistent near-or-possibly-full murder.

I leaned against a desk, beyond exhausted.

Thanks for reiterating that, because you haven’t been exhausted for like four entire chapters now and I was worried you were getting your second wind.

I had wandered too far away from the point of the explosion. It wasn’t likely that Cy had gotten this far inside the ship in that amount of time. Rendlesham and the soldiers might have already captured him.

This, like so many things in this book, makes absolutely no sense. Cy was on the ship before her. Why is it unlikely that he got on the ship before her, but hasn’t made it as far as she has? Why is it likely that Rendlesham, who was outside the ship when Rory got on it, somehow got ahead of her to find Cy? or maybe she means that between Cy getting on the ship and the explosion happening, he wouldn’t have been able to get as far away from the blast zone as she did? But that still doesn’t make sense, because Cy could’ve just gone a different direction.

I was alone in a dark busted ship, tripping over dead bodies.

But not corpses, victims, casualties, dead aliens, crew members… Look, I would understand if it was a word like “parasite” or “alien”, because there aren’t a lot of suitable substitutes, so the author has to repeat those words. There’s no way of avoiding the repetition. But here there is, so it really sticks out.

Rory hears somebody speaking in a different language, and then she hears Cy’s voice.

I turned, seeing Cy and his betrothed. Apolonia was holding a sword to my throat. She was breathtaking. Her skin was a bit lighter than Cy’s, and her long black hair fell in soft waves to her elbows. It was propped up somehow from the underside and then left to cascade over like a waterfall. She had two thick braids running across the top of her head and a heavy red stripe running across both of her eyes and nose, from temple to temple, making her pale blue eyes — that were just a few shades away from white — look even brighter. Her curve-hugging crimson uniform didn’t leave much to the imagination, showing her toned shoulders, arms, and add, and she was almost as tall as Cy. She looked both futuristic and savage.

Okay. The warrior from the culture that mimics a real-world culture of people of color is “savage”.

She could be in a workout commercial or a hair commercial or a lipstick commercial, I thought as I noticed her shimmering plump lips. My day just got much worse.

She could be in a workout commercial or a hair commercial or lipstick commercial or a commercial for my latent bisexuality. (Insert routine author note about underlines indicating italics).

So, remember how Rory’s human friends might be dead right now? And how she’s on a crashed spaceship, crawling over dead bodies? And how the fate of the entire world rests on her shoulders because some devastating alien parasite might consume the human race? But a girl being prettier than her, makes the day so much worse.

Cy warns Rory not to make any sudden movements, then he says something to Apolonia and she responds in their language. Cy tells her to speak English.

“English feels unpleasant in my mouth,” she replied. She spoke my language but awkwardly and with a severe accent. It made her seem less frightening even though she was looking at me like she wanted to take my life.

It’s important that we know that the scary savage’s accent is severe, because it helps keep her scary, but less so because she’s speaking English. Okay.

“Put down your weapon, Apolonia,” Cy commanded. He spoke much harsher than he had ever spoken to me.

Because he likes you more than he likes his fiancée. We get it.

Cy asks Rory what she saw on the way there, and you guessed it, she says she saw dead bodies. There’s also a line where she thinks about every muscle in her body relaxing, so now “body” is less of a word rep and more of a motif. Cy tells Rory to hide under a desk and not to come out until he tells her to. Then he and Apolonia make a run for it, but not real fast, because Cy is injured. Though I know it wasn’t the impression the author intended to give, it kind of seems like Cy just shoves Rory under a desk in a bid to save himself.

Before Cy and Apolonia can get away, Dr. Rendlesham arrives with some soldiers. Apolonia stares them down while Cy tries to warn them:

“Doctor, call off your men. She will kill them. And you.”

So…why not just let her. If Rendlesham is dead, he can’t do the thing with the parasite, right?

Because this book is this book, the tense stand-off goes on way too long. Rendlesham tells him they have five AK-47s aimed at her, and Cy is all, let your men go home to their families, and Rendlesham is like, I’m giving you one more chance, and Cy again tries with the think-of-your-kids-back-home thing, and Rendlesham tells a soldier to take the shot, but the soldier hesitates, blah blah blah. Writing Tip:  If you’re trying to write a tense gun-battle stand off scene, every dialogue exchange sucks some of the tension out. That’s what happens here. It goes from a stand-off to a conversation that’s happening while weapons politely try to not eavesdrop. After a few lines of back and forth, the reader begins to doubt that anyone is going to do anything at all.

As it happens, a soldier does end up firing his gun. He shoots Cy, which is the wrong thing to do, because Apolonia’s eyes go all black. She unsheathes her sword and deflects the bullets the soldiers fire at her with the blade. But she doesn’t kill Rendlesham. Then more soldiers run in.

Her eyes lacked compassion or fear. Her flawlessness revealed that she wasn’t human, but her eyes exposed her inhumanity. I didn’t imagine any of these men wanted to spar with her. That much beauty with that much malevolence was unsettling.

Raise your hand if the combination of “savage” and “non-english-speaking” and “inhuman” are hitting all kinds of buttons here.

I found that video when I was looking for a funny image to use here. If it’s stuck in my head, it has to be stuck in yours now, too. My curiosity is both of our downfalls.

So, Rory is still hiding under the desk while Apolonia kills like two-dozen soldiers:

Within minutes, she was the only one left standing among at least twenty-five bodies.

 

You’ll need this. For the bodies. Not the bodies in the story, but the number of times the word “body” is used in both the singular and plural form in this chapter.

I was afraid of no man, but Apolonia wasn’t a man. She wasn’t even a woman.

So she’s not a woman, she’s not a man…

That leaves one option, and it’s in a Prince song about Jesus Christ.

She was death encapsulated in perfection–a frightening thing to behold.

She’s not a woman, she’s not a man, she is something that you’ll never understand. Her name is Apolonia, which is just one “l” off from making this the perfect Prince joke.

But let’s go back to the part where Rory says she’s “afraid of no man.”

Pump the brakes, Eowyn, because while you have, admittedly, shown some character growth in the past few chapters, you’re afraid of everything. At the beginning of this chapter you even doubt your own bravery. And I’m not even convinced that as a character you’ve become braver; all I’ve really seen evidence of is your willingness to charge into danger out of sheer spite.

Also, let’s talk about your supposed immortality that has apparently been dropped or maybe never picked up. I’m not sure if you were supposed to be actually immortal or not, but if you were, why would you be so afraid of Apolonia?

Wait, if Rory is immortal and Apolonia is death encapsulated in perfection, maybe the book ends with them becoming crime fighting buddies! Gosh, I hope not, because that would mean there would be more books with Rory in them.

Before we move on, let’s add the whole “she’s not a man or a woman” thing into the “entirely remove the humanity of a character whose race is informed by that of real world people of color” bucket, right along with “savage”, “non-English-speaking”, “inhuman”.

Benji suddenly came into view. I was so glad that he was okay, and I wanted to hold him so much that my entire body literally pulled an inch or two in his direction.

Emphasis mine.

Apolonia doesn’t see him, so, you know. Some highly lethal killing machine warrior non-woman she is. Benji crawls over to Rory, who warns that Apolonia is going to kill him.

Apolonia kneeled beside me, her face just inches from my cheek, but I didn’t dare look at her or her freaky-ass black eyes.

She spoke something beautiful but frightening.

“Just don’t hurt him,” I said. Accepting that she would use her sword to slice through me, I closed my eyes. Just because I would come back didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. I wasn’t exactly sure I could come back after being cut in half anyway.

Never, in the history of any paranormal or fantasy book I have ever read, have I been so confused about the possible immortality of a main character. Seriously, why are we supposed to be on the edge of our seats that Rory might die if she’s immortal? Is withholding confirmation or clarity on the issue an attempt to make the book more compelling? It’s not working.

Unfortunately, Apolonia doesn’t cut Rory in half. Instead, she tells Rory and Benji to stand up, and Benji tries to get between Rory and Apolonia.

“Stop moving!” I said, my voice breaking. I was sure at any moment she was going to decapitate him.

Apolonia’s eyes were blue again, and she rolled them at us.

Same.

Apolonia tells Rory that she’s not going to hurt them, and asks if Dr. Zoidberg, who’s lingering in the hall, is with them.

Apolonia left us, stepping over bodies to reach Cy.

Emphasis mine.

Rory rushes to Cy’s side, too, or tries to with her injured leg, which she has injured without noticing. Which, you know, can happen, but it better have happened for a reason that’s better than “look how vulnerable I am in comparison to this scary, savage, inhuman stand-in for a woman of color.”

Cy is okay, he’s just shot in the shoulder. Good thing that rarely kills people. He warns everyone that if Apolonia can’t get the specimen and make contact with her father soon, Earth’s time is up. Cy wants to know what Benji is doing there:

“He was looking for me. He saw the Nayara this morning while he was running. She’s sort of hard to miss.”

“He just happened to be running before dawn?” Cy said, snarling at Benji.

“He always runs in the mornings! Would you please trust me for once?”

Okay, but remember the part where he was wandering around, specifically shouting your name? And now he was just on a jog? Let’s decide which one it is.

Benji looked at me, confused and hesitant to respond. “I would never do anything to hurt Rory. She’s more important to me than she is to you.”

“Why is that?” Cy seethed.

“Because I…that’s none of your business.”

“Rory is my business,” Cy said.

“As flattering as this is,” I said, “we have shit to do. Let’s get Cy stitched up.”

Cy and Benji stared each other down until Apolonia tightened her grip on Cy.

All-powerful, preternaturally beautiful female side character intimidated by plain Jane main’s importance to her man? I would expect no less of this book.

Apolonia suggests they go out and look for survivors. They leave Dr. Z in charge of Cy.

Then Benji and I went with her to check the bodies in the hallway. Every time we couldn’t find signs of life, Apolonia became more and more angry. After the sixteenth body, I was beginning to feel afraid around her.

Emphasis mine. And you’ve been afraid of her this entire time. Hell, you’ve been threatened by her since you found out she existed.

Through the breach in the hull they see that Rendlesham and his guys are gone. They just left, I guess. That’s convenient to the plot. They find a woman who’s still alive, but impaled.

“I hope she makes it,” Benji said. “If not, Apolonia might stab one of us just to make herself feel better.”

Because she’s just that “savage”.

Apolonia lifts the woman off the thing impaling her–btw, not the way you handle an impalement injury, since whatever is currently jabbing through the person is holding a lot of important shit in place, like blood and possibly organs–and when the woman doesn’t scream, Rory thinks:

The young woman wasn’t many years away from being a girl, and she had already displayed an intense amount of bravery and self-control that I had only seen once before–in myself.

Are you serious? You just saw an alien warrior woman armed only with a sword plow through twenty-five soldiers armed with AK-47s without flinching or breaking a sweat, but it’s your courage and strength you’re reminded of? Sweet Hera, save us from this mortal’s hubris.

When they get back to the bridge, Cy and Dr. Z are gone, and Apolonia guesses that they went to the infirmary, so she takes everyone there.

We entered an all-white room, every surface made of the same strange cloth-like material.

Is it, uh, cloth?

Even the walls, floors, and small surgical tables and beds were composed of this gauze-cheesecloth combination.

So it’s not “cloth-like”. It’s just cloth.

The room also glows without any visible light fixtures, and Dr. Z is tending Cy’s wounds. Because remember, in this book, doctor means doctor of everything. Apolonia puts the impaled woman on a bed and bad news, everyone! The impaled lady is the ship’s doctor! And she’s got blood leaking out of her ears!

Cy called out, prompting Apolonia to rush to his side. My stomach tensed, and my cheeks flushed, but it wasn’t jealousy.

Sure it wasn’t.

I was that I couldn’t bear losing someone else. IT was too much to stomach–that, and so much blood. I hadn’t seen that much blood since–

Since you were picking over casualties in the hallway? Since you saw a room full of soldiers get shredded with a sword? Nope! Since your mother and best friend died. Because they bled more blood than countless dead aliens and two-dozen soldiers.

As it turns out, Rory is also overwhelmed because she’s hurt. Benji puts her on the table with the bleeding doctor, Tsavi, and Cy is all, “Help her.”

I turned my head and stared into his beautiful golden eyes. He always had a calming effect on me, even when I hated him. He was dirty, covered in grease, soot, and blood, but he was still beautiful. Like my mother just before she died.

“I’ll be okay,” I said although it was too quiet for anyone but Cy to hear.

He reached out for me, and I mustered up the last of my strength to lift my hand to touch his fingertips.

GODDAMNIT ARE YOU IMMORTAL OR NOT?! You don’t get to have a death scene if you’re immortal! You just fucking said Apolonia could stab you with a sword and you would come back. Why should I believe there is any sense of danger in this scene?

But whatever. Benji tells Rory that he won’t let anything happen to her, and the chapter is over.

RWA/RRW Issues Life-Long Ban Against Plagiarist Laura Harner

Romance Writers of America, the largest professional organization of romance authors in the U.S., has taken disciplinary action against Laura Harner for plagiarism of author Becky McGraw:

The RWA Ethics Committee reviewed the complaint of plagiarism brought by Becky McGraw against Laura Harner. After examining and assessing all corresponding documents, Laura Harner received lifetime expulsion from membership in Romance Writers of America due to plagiarism, which includes a permanent ban from participating in or attending any RWA-sponsored events or activities including conferences, workshops, classes, and any chapter activities. Ms. Harner was notified on November 16, 2015.

Rainbow Romance Writers, a special interest chapter of RWA, of which McGraw was a member, has also issued a statement:

RRW would like to extend our deepest condolences to Becky McGraw and Opal Carew for the blatant theft perpetrated against you. No author should be betrayed by one of their own and we hope you will find justice. Please don’t allow this duplicity to discourage you from writing. The romance community and your fans have your back!

You can read the RRW statement in full here, as well as a section dedicated to answering questions regarding copyright and plagiarism.

For more on Laura Harner’s plagiarism, see here and here.

Double Steve Bonus Monday!

(Fry)

 

TROUT NATION STATE OF URGENCY!

Everyone! The United States is set to deport a single mother her child, who is a Jus Soli American citizen. As a western-educated single mother, Rejoice Musa faces an incredibly dangerous situation in Boko Haram-terrorized Nigeria. Her predicament is incredibly serious. Please take a few minutes to sign her campaign and send a message to Senator Gary Peters and DHS director Jeh Johnson.

VIDEO: What I’m Like When I’m Depressed.

I’ve been having a rough time lately, and it occurred to me that if I made a video about it, I could give you guys a clearer picture of how depression, anxiety, and OCD all kind of wind together to make me like this. It’s a long-ish video, and it’s very whiney. I didn’t make it because I’m desperate for everyone to come out and be like, “Oh, you’re so WONDERFUL! Please don’t think bad things about yourself because YOU’RE SO MAGICAL!” or any bullshit like that. I just wanted to share this with you guys, and maybe some of you do the same stuff when you’re having a really hard time.

 

#LegionXIII Rome watch along S01E03: “An Owl In A Thornbush” or “Cannonball Pompey Run”

Quick rundown of the episode: Caesar is back in Italy with a single legion. Guess which legion? Hurrah! Except this makes him a traitor, so the people who are loyal to him in the city are kind of SOL now. But as Antony points out, it’s really only treason if they lose. He sends Vorenus and Pullo and some other soldiers off with a message for Rome, a message they’re supposed to deliver to the Senate doors.

We get to meet the father of Niobe’s baby, who she totally doesn’t love, you guys. Except for the passionate kissing and stuff. And Vorena the Elder is like, we are all covering for you, you either need to come clean to dad or stop fooling around with this guy.

With Caesar thirty miles from Rome, Pompey is sort of like, “You know, let’s just leave. Fly south for the winter. Then we’ll get the band back together and come back.” And everyone in his crew does what he says, even though they all know he’s running away like a coward. He’s also going to take as much money as he can from the treasury, and he sends some dudes to get it, all sneaky like. But the guys in charge have a knife-related disagreement over whether or not they should take it to Pompey, and instead some of the soldiers run off with it.

Supporters of Pompey surround Atia’s house, where Servillia and Brutus are trapped with them. The mob is about to break down the door, and everyone is making plans for who will kill who before they can be taken alive, when suddenly everything just stops. The news guy is in the square talking about how anyone who doesn’t leave the city with Pompey is a traitor.

Brutus is stressed about whether or not they should stay in the city, and he tries to convince his mother to leave. But Servillia is gonna stand by her man. Octavia is gonna stand by her man, too, but since she’s Octavia and this show treats her the way it does, her mom sends Timon (her security dude) to kill Glabius.

Now that the city is all but Caesar’s, Atia finds herself in exactly the right position to be killing people who get in her way. Because she’s a straight-up mafia don. People are coming to her for “protection”, which she gives them for a fee after she makes them grovel appropriately.

Without the money from the treasury, Pompey and all the rich people trudging along behind him are up shit creek without a paddle. Bad news for them, Vorenus and Pullo and the cavalry find the thieves first. Pullo wants to rescue the slave girl the thieves are dragging behind the cart, but Vorenus is like, nah.

Atia should be pretty much in the clear with the whole “murder my ex-son-in-law” thing, until someone brings his dead body to the house. Which of course devastates Octavia. And then she totally blows her cover with Octavia by letting her guilty conscience show. Luckily, Atia easily recovers from her bouts of conscience when they attack, and she swears on all sorts of very Roman things to swear by that she didn’t do it.

Caesar’s declaration to Rome is basically, “Look, we all have bad days. If you were rebelling against me before, just don’t do it violently anymore. You can still hate me, that’s cool, but you’re not my enemy and you get to keep all your stuff.” Which is about 100% more user friendly than Pompey’s “Do it, or consequences” that’s going to end in crucifixion or some other horrible Roman thing.

Vorenus decides that he’s a traitor to Rome, so he’s going to desert the legion and go home and fix his marriage. He apologizes to Niobe for how he’s been treating her, and she tries to tell him about the whole “Hey, your grandson is actually my son with this other dude I’m still seeing,” but he shushes her up and tells her that the past is in the past.

As Caesar marches into Rome, Pullo goes back to find the girl being dragged behind the now untended ox cart. He finds her, and she’s barely alive. He also finds all the gold, and does what any man who finds an ox cart of gold would do: he jumps on that fucker and drives the oxen straight out of dodge, while Caesar’s weird sounding horns trumpet his return.

 My favorite part of the episode: It’s actually one of my favorite scenes of the series overall: Octavia and Atia arguing over whether or not Atia should get to slit Octavia’s throat in the event of impending rape/murder by the angry mob.

My least favorite part of the episode: It is so unfair that Glabius had to die, but nobody gets to be happy on this show. Even when they win, they’re not happy. Still, this put’s Octavia’s average at one shitty thing happening to her per episode.

Favorite costume: 

Team Atia or Team Servillia: Setting aside my feelings for her for the rest of the show, Servillia wins this round, for handling the equivalent of a nasty Facebook politics fight with her son with grace, while also sticking to her guns.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet:

“Juno’s cunt!” seems like a cross stitch project waiting to happen. #LegionXIII

— Bronwyn Green (@Bronwyn_Green) November 17, 2015

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? I bet we had the same fave this episode. I’m going to ask her to help me make it (sans intricate embroidery, because I have no patience for that kind of thing).

Guess Jess’s head canon. “I have no need for your coital expertise.” –Vorenus, to Pullo. “Yes you do.” Jess, to the TV.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s and Jess’s posts, and join us two Monday’s from now (we’re taking the week off for American Thanksgiving) at 9 PM EST for season one, episode four, “Stealing From Saturn”. Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!

 

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S02E22: “Becoming part 2″

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone messed up her finger and has to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to do this recap, so expect some typos. 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.

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. 

So, previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy returned to the library to find Kendra dead, and the episode ended with a police officer pulling a gun on her. This episode picks right up at the same spot, with two officers telling Buffy to put her hands up and back away from the girl. One of the cops checks on Kendra, and says that she’s dead. The other cop asks about the others, and for the first time Buffy sees Xander lying unconscious on the floor. She tries to go to him, but the cops hold her back. One of them wrestles her into the hallway, where Snyder has arrived.

Snyder: “Buffy Summers. If there’s trouble, she’s behind it.”

He also tells the officer that Buffy has behavioral problems, which she pretty much confirms when the officer tries to cuff her, and she pushes him and runs away. The other cop runs into the hallway, and tries to shoot Buffy.

Okay, let’s talk about the shot this officer makes. Not only is her partner between her and Buffy, so is another civilian. She has to shoot past Snyder to have any chance of hitting Buffy. in other words, this is not a safe shot take. She communicates to dispatch that Buffy is on the loose, and very dangerous, but you know who else is very dangerous? People who don’t understand the margin of error in handgun firing.

After the opening credits, Buffy shows up at Sunnydale general, or whatever the hospital is called. She is absolutely the worst at being undercover. First of all, she’s wearing a black beanie and a leather coat. She looks like Joe Pesci in Home Alone. She also checks around a lot to see if anybody’s looking at her. And while she’s doing this, she does things that would call attention to her anyway, like act like she’s going to pick up a patient chart. Luckily, Xander is there to stop her from drawing too much attention to herself. Xander’s arm is all bandaged up, and Buffy asks him about everybody else. But some police officers walk in, and Xander has to hug Buffy to hide her face. Xander understands that people hug in hospitals, so it won’t look strange. On her own, Buffy probably would have tried to evade detection by setting herself on fire.

 Buffy: “Okay. That was about equal parts protecting me and copping a feel right?”

You know it’s bad when Xander doesn’t play along with Buffy’s platonic flirting. She knows that means it’s bad, too.

Cut to Willow, unconscious in a hospital bed. Xander tells Buffy that Willow has experienced head trauma. she could wake up, but the longer she’s unconscious the less likely that is.

How come when Willow gets knocked out it’s a serious medical condition, but when Giles gets knocked out it’s just a momentary inconvenience? And can we talk about this whole Willow is in a coma thing? She’s in a room with a painting of flowers and a lamp that could’ve been on your Nana’s end table. She has an IV, but there’s no oxygen, she’s not even on a heart monitor. No wonder Sunnydale has such a high mortality rate; even if you live to get to the hospital, you’ll probably die while you’re there just because they don’t know what they’re doing.

Xander said he forgot to call Oz, but before he can, Cordelia runs in and gives him a big hug. See what I said about people hugging in hospitals? I’m always right. And you doubted me.

Cordelia is teary and concerned about Willow, and Buffy is concerned about Cordelia.

 Cordelia: “I ran. I think I made it through three counties before I realized nobody was chasing me. Not too brave.”

Buffy tells Cordelia that she did the right thing, and Xander asks her if Giles kept up with her. But Cordelia didn’t see Giles. Buffy asks Xander if Giles is in the hospital, and Xander says no. Which means…

Don’t worry, everybody! Though Giles is not in the hospital, he’s definitely unconscious. We could expect no less of him. Angel has kidnapped him. Giles asks him what he wants, and Angel is like, “I wanted to throw your party for your four hundredth concussion of the series!” and a banner drops from the ceiling. The air is thick with balloons, and the confetti cannons thunder.

Just kidding, Angel is going to torture him. Since Angel can’t figure out how to do the ritual to raise his demon pal, he plans on slicing off various parts of our favorite librarian to get some pointers.

At Buffy’s house, a police detective is talking to Joyce.

 Detective: “And you have no idea where your daughter is?”

Joyce: “She said she was going to her friend Willow’s house. Maybe she slept over?”

I like to think that the detective’s tone in this scene is less like, “you’re a terrible mother because your daughter is a homicide suspect,” and more like, “you’re a terrible mother because you don’t know where the hell your daughter is.” Seriously, it’s the middle of the night and she doesn’t know where Buffy is. And not knowing, it’s the fact that she’s perplexed as to why she should be expected to know where her daughter is. (3)  The detective refers to Willow as the second victim. I guess Xander’s arm doesn’t count as a victim. The detective gives Joyce his card and tells her to call him if Buffy comes home.

Buffy goes to Giles’s apartment Where she runs into the obnoxious fedora guy from the last episode. I guess that when I said, “He’s never seen again” in my last recap, what I meant was, “I hope he’s never seen again, because his very existence is so pointless that I actually forgot he was in the second episode.” He gives a few smart ass answers that are meant to show how laid back and irreverent he is about all this supernatural stuff in an effort to lend extra gravity to whatever serious statements he might make. Buffy slams him into the wall and says what I wish someone would have said to Joss Whedon before he wrote these episodes:

Buffy: “I have had a really bad day, okay? If you have information worth hearing, then I am grateful for it. If you’re gonna crack jokes, then I am going to pull out your ribcage and wear it as a hat.”

This scene has no information worth hearing, and is only about Whistler cracking jokes. Well, and being deep and broody, like an MRA’s Tumblr.

“Welcome to my twisted mind…M’lady.”

All that happens in this scene is that Whistler recaps everything we’ve seen so far this season. Angel was evil, then he was good,  now because, in Whistler’s horrifying description,  Angel and Buffy “made with the smoochies”, Angel is evil again. He asks her if she’s really ready to do whatever she has to do to stop Angel. Does everyone on this show have to question Buffy’s judgment? Seriously, the audience gets it. Buffy is willing to do whatever it takes to stop Angel. We got that like four episodes ago.

As Buffy leaves the pointless scene, Whistler shouts one piece of information that might actually have some bearing on the rest of the story and that we haven’t heard before. He tells her that the sword she was going to use, the sword that was forged for the knight who turned Acathla into stone, isn’t enough to stop Angel.

Did I mentioned that this scene was pointless?

Buffy wanders the streets of Sunnydale looking as suspicious as a person possibly can. Of course, this attracts the attention of a police officer, who gets out of his car and draws a gun on her. But Spike steps in and rescues her. Yes, you read that right, Spike has given up wanting to see the Slayer dead. The lure of spiting Angel is too much for ol’ Spike, and as the enemy of my enemy is my friend, he’s got a proposal for Buffy. He just has to get her to stop kicking his ass for a minute to listen to him:

Spike: “You wanna go a round, pet, I’ll have a gay old time of it. If you want to stop Angel, we’re going to have to play at this a bit differently.”

Buffy is sure that Spike is working with Angel to trick her, but when Spike tells her that Angel has Giles, Buffy has no choice but to listen as Spike monologues about wanting to save the world:

Spike: “We like to talk big, vampires. I’m going to destroy the world. It’s just tough guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You’ve got dog racing. Manchester United. And you’ve got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It’s all right here.”

What do you think happens next, to punctuate that evil statement?

#22, we meet again.

Spike is worried that Angel is actually going to destroy the world, so the game isn’t as fun anymore. Buffy asks why Spike would come to her for help, and he tells her that it’s because he wants to get back together with Dru. In other words, hey Buffy, can you kill the guy who used to be the guy you were in love with? It will really solve all my dating problems. And Buffy isn’t so into that:

Buffy: “I lost a friend tonight!”

Spike: “I wasn’t in on that raiding party!”

Buffy: “And I may lose more. The whole earth may be sucked into hell and you want my help ’cause your girlfriend’s a big ho?”

Okay, the line is kind of funny, but it’s also an example of #6, because even if Drusilla is a villain, we’ve still got a girl calling another girl a ho here. Especially when the line could have easily been written to insult Spike. She didn’t have to say anything about Drusilla. She could have made her snappy comeback about how pathetic it is that Spike had to ask his mortal enemy with help pertaining to his love life. But you know, funnier than I just worded that.

Either way, Buffy kind of has to agree to work with him, because there’s no better option.

At the hospital, Xander tells Cordy that he doesn’t want to leave Willow’s side, in case she wakes up. He talks to Willow, telling her she has to come out of her coma, because she’s his best friend. Oh yeah, and he loves her. She miraculously comes to at those words, but asks for Oz, who’s just arrived. Xander leaves them alone and heads off into the groundwork of next season’s cheating drama. Willow asks Oz if everybody else is okay.

Everybody else is not okay. In fact, Giles is so not okay that he’s tied to a chair, shivering. Not in a sexy way that makes me want to get sexy. In a scary way that makes me want to rescue him. And then get sexy, after I’ve sexily tended his wounds. Anyway, Giles is withstanding Angel’s torture, not telling him anything, but here’s the thing. And I swear to G, this is not because I’m being perverted, but…and I almost hesitate to ask…is Angel crushing Giles’s balls in this scene? Is that what’s being implied here? Or have I watched that scene in Casino Royale too many times? This is a serious question, because this scene has always confused me and I’ve never had the courage to ask anybody about it. But there are like, no sharp implements that we see in Angel’s hands, and with the exception of the blood running from Giles’s bound wrists, there doesn’t seem to be a mark on him. And the position Angel is in, kneeling beside Giles… I don’t know, maybe they needed to pull back from the The Godfather II cinematography here so we could actually see what Angel is doing to Giles and I wouldn’t have to ask this embarrassing question.

Earlier in the episode, Angel makes a comment about potentially using a chainsaw to torture Giles. Now, obviously you don’t go right for the chainsaw, but I’m thinking that maybe cutting off a finger or toe or an ear or something might have been better at this stage. Yeah, you’d have to hide the actor’s finger or ear for the rest of the series, but if they could hide Gary Burghoff’s hand for nine seasons of M*A*S*H, they could hide Giles not having a pinky toe.

M*A*S*H has come up with kind of a weird frequency on this blog lately, hasn’t it? Or maybe I’m just imagining that.

Anyway, Buffy takes Spike to her house, where Joyce pulls into the driveway and launches out of the car to shout at Buffy about how she’s been looking everywhere and terrible things have happened and she couldn’t find her. Spike vocally realizes that Joyce doesn’t know Buffy is the Slayer, resulting in Buffy trying to make up a lie about playing the drums in a rock band. Just an FYI, if your mother thinks you might have committed murder, maybe don’t use the same cover story you would use to explain why you’re two hours late for dinner without admitting you were smoking dope with the bad kids on the playground. Joyce decides that now it’s time to go into assertive parent mode, but that’s exactly when vampires attack, so when she sees a vamp dusted literally right in front of her, she shifts into I-need-a-bottle-of-wine-to-deal-with-this-shit parent mode. And Buffy finally has to admit the truth to her mother:

Buffy: “Mom…I’m a vampire Slayer.”

And Joyce is, understandably, freaked out.

Back from commercial, Willow is on the phone to Buffy. She tells her she’s sorry that she couldn’t do the spell to give Angel his soul back, but Buffy is accepting of the fact that she’s not going to get Angel back exactly as he was before, and she says it just makes everything easier.

Do you hear that, Willow? NOT DOING THE SPELL MAKES EVERYTHING EASIER. SO JUST KEEP DOING THAT, WILLOW. OKAY WILLOW?

Meanwhile, in the living room:

On the phone with Xander, Buffy tells him the location of Angel and his henchmen:

Buffy: “Do you remember that funky-looking mansion you showed me that one time?”

So, hang on a minute. You’re looking for vampires. And you know there is a “funky-looking” mansion in town. So “funky-looking” that you don’t even need an address to describe it to your friends and they automatically know what you’re talking about? Why not look for vampires there?

In the living room of awkward doom, Joyce realizes that she’s seen Spike somewhere before:

Joyce: “Have we met?”

Spike: “Uh… You hit me with an axe one time. Remember? ‘Get the hell away from my daughter’?”

Joyce is spared from trying to make small talk with the vampire who tried to kill her once (or maybe Spike is spared from trying to make small talk with a human he once tried to kill) when Buffy returns from her phone call. She tells Joyce that Willow is okay, then cuts right to the chase with Spike. He tells her he’ll help her if she just lets him and Drusilla leave. Buffy tells him that she can’t let Drusilla go; Dru killed the other slayer. Spike is totally psyched to hear that Drusilla killed a Slayer, because that’s kind of his thing, and now they can bond. Meanwhile, Joyce has so many questions. Why does Buffy want to kill her boyfriend? Did Kendra explode like a vampire? Then we take a turn for the heavy-handed parallel to homosexuality:

Joyce: “Honey, are you sure you’re a vampire slayer?”

And:

Joyce: “I mean, have you tried not being a slayer?”

Or the classic:

Joyce: “It’s because you didn’t have a strong father figure, isn’t it?”

First of all, Joyce, Buffy has a dad. Yeah, he’s not around right now, and he ceases to be around entirely once he blows off the ice show on her birthday next season. But he does exist and was a part of her life until her teens. Second, #23. To explain my yucky feelings on this one, I’m going to have to compare and contrast to one of my other favorite shows, Merlin. And I know that not everybody agrees with me on this viewpoint, but stick with me a second, because this is ultimately not about defending Merlin, but pointing out what made me really uncomfortable about this dynamic in Buffy. 

In Merlin, magic is used as an allegory for homosexuality. Magic makes Merlin different. It’s something about him that has to be kept secret so he can continue to dwell peacefully in his home. If someone finds out that he has magic, their opinions of him will change (and he’ll get killed, also a very real consequence of open homosexuality today). The entire series centers around Merlin’s struggle to keep his magic secret; Merlin’s entire character is defined by the unfairness of the prejudice against him in Camelot, and his desire to be able to live as the person he really is without persecution.

Now, let’s compare the attempt to send Buffy on a similar arc. So far, Buffy’s character has been defined by the fact that she walks in two different worlds, the supernatural world, and the normal teen girl world. The emphasis of her arc has been trying to balance her sacred duty with the regular life she wants. If Buffy could stop being the Slayer, she would, as we hear her lament time and again. Buffy doesn’t want to live openly among the world as a Slayer; she just doesn’t want to be a Slayer, and she likes the world exactly how it is for non-Slayer people.

My personal stance is that Merlin used the parallel better, because Merlin, though he had moments of self-doubt, ultimately believed that there was nothing wrong with magic, and nothing evil about him. It was the world around him that was the problem. Buffy can’t make the allegory work, because for Buffy, the world around her is more attractive, it’s her magical powers she views as an abomination. In other words, if being a Slayer is now suddenly a metaphor for homosexuality, then what the show is telling us is that Buffy hates her Slayerness/gayness and would be better off not being the Slayer/gay anymore. And sure, you could argue that it shows some level of deeply internalized self-loathing on Buffy’s part, but it’s never explored that way. The entire show is about Buffy accepting this tragic burden and learning to embrace this horrible thing that’s been done to her (in season seven, the creation of the first Slayer is likened to rape). And at the end of the show, she gets her wish; regardless of how the comic books extended the story, the canon of the television series shows us that Buffy is free from her burden as Slayer, and can go on with her life as a normal person as she always deserved to.

But that’s just my interpretation. Your mileage may vary.

Joyce wants to go to the police. She assumes that since she believes Buffy is a Slayer, the police will also believe that Buffy is a Slayer. Buffy reminds her that they don’t have any proof, and that involving the police would only get more people hurt. Joyce demands to know what’s going on, and Buffy says:

Buffy: “Just have another drink.”

Let me tell you something. If my kid ever said that to me, I would have the same reaction that Joyce does, which is to throw my glass against the wall. And it seems pretty out of character for Buffy. Even though we always hear about what a problem child she is, we hardly ever see her mouthing off to her mom. It’s possible that this is just because we don’t ever really see her mother that often. Yeah, there’s the whole burning down the school thing and always being in trouble, but it’s rare that Joyce and Buffy are in an actual fight, saying hurtful things. On the other hand, she’s under a lot of stress, too. She tells Joyce that there isn’t time to explain what’s going on, and Joyce tells her that she better make time.

Buffy: “Open your eyes, Mom. What do you think has been going on for the past two years? The fights, the weird occurrences? How many times have you washed blood out of my clothing, and you still haven’t figure it out?”

Joyce: “Well it stops now!”

Buffy: “No, it doesn’t stop! It never stops! Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you have any idea how lonely it is, how dangerous? I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or, god, even studying! But I have to save the world. Again.”

It is at this point that Joyce decides her daughter is crazy. Because she’s been infected with #8 and can’t see the obvious even when it’s been laid out for her. She tells Buffy that she won’t let her out of the house, so Buffy shoves her and runs for the door. And then Joyce says the thing that no one should ever say to their child ever:

Joyce: “You walk out of this house, don’t even think about coming back!”

#3. because this is 100% unforgivable. I don’t care how frustrated a parent gets. I don’t care how terrible a child is acting. If you tell your child this, they might take it seriously (as Buffy does) and you risk losing them forever. And maybe you’re a terrible person and you’re fine with that, but oh well. When you had your kid, you signed on to keep them safe. You don’t get to opt out of that. This isn’t like an adult child being kicked out of the house because they won’t stop doing drugs or they’re violent or they’re taking advantage of their family. This a minor who will have very few options if she does leave home.

Back at the hospital, Willow says that she wants to try to restore Angel’s soul again. Xander and Cordelia both point out that it’s probably not a great idea to channel dark powers while you have a concussion. Oz has missed all the conversations about the cure thing entirely, but he’s willing to help anyway. Before they leave, Willow tells Xander:

Willow: “Xander, go to Buffy, tell her what we’re doing. Maybe she can stall.”

[insert ominous music]

So, Angel is still torturing Giles. Even though Gilles doesn’t look like he’s been been tortured all. He just looks sweaty, and his top button is undone. I’m not complaining. But like I said before, why aren’t we seeing missing fingers? Why aren’t we seeing gaping wounds and awful things? I don’t want that to happen to the character, because we all know I love Giles, but for this big, bad, awful, evil vampire, Angel’s torture isn’t as messy as I assumed it would be, or as he’d made it out to be. Giles lets Angel believe that he’s about to break and give up all the information Angel needs to perform the ritual. But you know it’s not going to go down like that, because Giles is a bad ass:

Giles: “I order to be worthy, you must perform the ritual…in a tutu. Pillock.”

Angel yells for somebody to get the chainsaw (finally), but Spike intervenes. After all, he has to keep Giles safe in order to assure that Buffy won’t kill Drusilla. Spike points out that if Angel saws Giles up, he’s not going to get the information he wants.

Angel: “Since when did you become so level-headed?”

Um… since this whole time? Because of the two of you, only one of you is trying to open a portal to suck the entire world, including you, into hell. Spike reiterates how stupid it would be to kill Giles and mess up the chance to destroy the world. Spike also says that he doesn’t want to be cleaning librarian out of the carpet, which is one of my favorite Spike lines ever. He tells Angel that there are other ways to get the information, then calls Drusilla in, which seems like the worst idea if you’re trying to keep somebody alive. But whatever.

Buffy goes back to the library, where the lights are still on, and all of the witchcraft stuff is still set out on the table. Another thing I’ve never understood: when the police searched the scene, didn’t they notice all the weapons Giles has stockpiled in the library? Didn’t they notice the very obvious magic ritual that was going on right there in the middle of the library where the dead girl was? In season three, we see Sunnydale go through a satanic panic, but only because they’re cursed. It takes a literal curse to break #8. So I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that there are no repercussions for Giles, Willow, or Xander after the police found the remnants of their dark ritual.

Snyder shows up to gloat about the fact that he now has evidence to justify expelling Buffy. He also says that the police in Sunnydale are really stupid, which I have to agree with. And I have to give Snyder credit here. Even after Buffy pulls a sword out of her bag in an attempt to intimidate him, he just kinda stands there. He doesn’t look afraid. After she leaves, he makes a phone call to tell the mayor that he has good news. At this point, the mayor is already invested in getting rid of Buffy, which set us up for season three without forcing too much for shadowing down our throats. I still believe in #28, by the way. I don’t think that Snyder is aware that the mayor is evil.

At the mansion, Drusilla hypnotizes Giles into believing she is Jenny Calendar, and Giles’s mind is basically so broken down by the vague, bloodless torture that he believes it’s really her. Jenny-Drusilla promises that they can be together if he tells her about the ritual, which he kind of does, at least enough that Angel can figure out the missing information. The blood Angel uses in the ritual can’t just be any sacrifice, it has to be his own blood. Now that Giles has given up the information, Angel decides that he is of no use to him anymore, but Spike buys Giles more time by suggesting that he could be lying. Spike is pretty good at thinking on his feet, which makes you wonder why so many of his brilliant plans go awry in later seasons. Meanwhile, Drusilla is happily making out with Giles, long after they’ve gotten the information that they need. Look, I’m not going to blame her. I think it’s what we would all do in that situation. Plus, it gives us some much-needed comedic relief, because Angel and Spike look like this:

On the other hand, when Giles realizes what happened, his face is the worst:

back at Giles’s apartment, that obnoxious Whistler dude is still there going through all of Gilles’s kitchen stuff. Buffy comes in and asks Whistler what he meant by the sword not being enough, and Whistler of course takes his time answering, trying to be funny. I don’t think I can express how much I hate this character. In the comments section of the last recap, a few people pointed out that Whistler was supposed to be the character that became Doyle on Angel, but thank God he didn’t. Glenn Quinn wasn’t even 1/10 as annoying as this dude. Whistler tells Buffy that since Angel’s blood opens the portal, Angel’s blood has to close the portal, but it would be better for her to kill Angel before he wakes the Acathla. Which I’m pretty sure is news is that, again, we already had. And, again, the scene ends with Whistler saying something cryptic. There is nothing about this character that introduces new information. He is completely unnecessary.

Xander catches up to Buffy at sunrise. Buffy tells him to help rescue Giles, but overall stay out of the fight. Xander doesn’t deliver Willow’s message:

Xander: “Willow…she told me to tell you…”

Buffy: “Tell me what?”

Xander: “Kick his ass.”

Now, I believe that this is motivated by Xander’s jealousy (#5). He knows that there’s a real chance that Willow could pull this off and cure Angel. He could tell Buffy this, and let her act of her own agency, make the decision to either kill Angel or stall to see if Willow manages to work the spell. What he does here is take the choice out of Buffy’s hands, because he thinks he knows better than she does. And that’s awful, and bad, and unforgivable (and never brought up again until season seven, which is a massive oversight on the part of the writers). But I agree with him. We’ve seen what happens when Angel loses his soul. He doesn’t just become a vampire again, he becomes an especially sadistic vampire who kills not just to feed, but to rack up a high body count. Without his soul, he is pure evil, and if he loses it again we’ll see get the same results. I am 100% team kill Angel.

All that said, Xander was particularly cruel here, and he never pays for it. Not even in season seven when it does come up again. It’s just kind of brushed off when they move on to more important things.

Angel is ready to try the ritual again, but this time he’s saying a bunch of Latin words. So, did he not know this part of the ritual before when he tried it? All he got from Giles was the information about the blood. Whatever. I’m done looking for consistency in this particular storyline. I’m just going to give myself over to despair.

Also, when Angel cuts himself, he cuts himself across his palm in the time-honored tradition of all on-screen bloodletting. Usually, I would complain about this; it’s never made sense to me why someone would cut right across their palm. Why not the back of your wrist? Why not your pinky finger? Why put the whole hand entirely out of commission like that? But since Angel is a vampire has really quick healing abilities, I let this one slide.

In the hospital room, Willow, Oz, and Cordelia are ready for to perform the ritual. They’re burning sage. The fact that this doesn’t alert any of the hospital staff to like, a fire or somebody smoking, further convinces me that Sunnydale General is the worst hospital in the world. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to make it a list item. I’m going to now. #31: Sunnydale general is the worst hospital in the world.

So, Angel’s doing the ritual, and there’s this random vampire henchmen standing there watching. All of a sudden random vampire henchman’s head comes popping right off, giving Buffy this dramatic reveal thing. Angel asks her if she’s planning to really take on him and Drusilla and Spike, and she tells him she’s not just as Spike stands and bashes Angel in the head. And Drusilla looks pretty surprised to see Spike not just miraculously cured of his paraplegia but also wailing on Angel with a crowbar. Another random vampire henchmen runs at Buffy, and Drusilla lunges at Spike before he can get a chance to kill Angel. Dru squares up with Spike, who says he doesn’t want to hurt her, but when she attacks him he knocks her down. Let’s be honest, that was the only way she was leaving the scene without Angel. You know, he was her sire. She was willing to go down with the ship. And it seems kind of obvious that she’d chosen Angel over Spike a while ago. So, while the first time I watched this series I saw Spike as being devoted to his one true love and protecting her and being all gallant, he was basically pulling a Han Solo in The Courtship of Princess Leia. He’s kidnapping her to make her love him. Which really explains why Dru leaves him next season. I always thought of Dru as being flaky and jumping from demon to demon, but what she was really doing when she left Spike was escaping an abusive relationship.

Willow continues the ritual from her hospital bed, and Xander rushes in to save Giles. At this point, Giles can’t trust his own mind, so he doesn’t believe that it’s really Xander:

Giles: “You’re not real.”

Xander: “Sure I’m real.”

Giles: “It’s a trick They get inside my head…make me see things I want.”

Xander: “Then why would they make you see me?”

Giles: “You’re right. Let’s go.”

While Buffy is distracted fighting random henchman vamps, Angel manages to wake Acathla. Which, if as you recall, is not great.

No good can come of swirling purple light on this show.

So, now the vortex is open. I hope you’re happy Giles.

Oh my gosh, I’m totally kidding. I feel guilty even writing that

In the hospital, candles are still burning, sage is still smoking, nobody, not an orderly, not a nurse, not a passing doctor or visitor has noticed this fire hazard as Willow works on the spell.

Angel pulls the sword from the Acathla, beginning the epic showdown we’ve been waiting for this whole season. Well, at least half this season.  The fight isn’t as tense as I remember it being the first six or seven times I’ve watched it. Maybe that’s why, this time, I noticed how incredibly obvious the stunt performers are. Now, this is probably a really mean thing to say about a show I love, but the cuts between Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz and their respective doubles was laughably ill-disguised here. But I’m going to look on the bright side: I only noticed it years later, after multiple viewings, and in comparison to the usually excellent editing during the fight scenes.

Anyway, they do swords. There’s not much I can describe here, because it’s this massive, fast-paced fight. You guys know what a Buffy fight is like, you get the idea.

Willow is really getting into her spell now, and for the first time, she does the thing where the presence of magic is indicated by a sharp look straight up:

This is going to happen again a few times.

Buffy and Angel are still fighting, Acathla is rumbling, and Spike finally manages to choke Dru into unconsciousness. As he leaves, he sees Buffy unarmed and cornered by Angel.

Spike: “God, he’s gonna kill her.”

Then he shrugs and walks away.

Angel has Buffy beat. So obviously he stops to gloat:

Angel: “That’s everything, huh? No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what’s left?”

Buffy: “Me.”

POW! Our girl stops Angel’s sword from slicing into her by grabbing the blade with her bare hands, and the ass-kicking continues. Spike drives off with Drusilla in their car with blacked out windows, and Willow is straight up shouting in some archaic language, but still nobody from the hospital comes in to check on her. The Orb of Thesulah glows and vanishes, and suddenly:

Ah, shit.

Angel’s soul is back. At the worst possible time. And at first, she can’t believe it’s not a trick. Honestly, I would have cut his head off by now. Like, yeah, sure you’re suddenly ensouled again. Fuck off. And then I would wipe his head right off.

But Buffy finally does recognize that it’s real, and, as the Acathla opens the portal, that it’s way too late for that to do any good.

 

Buffy knows what she has to do. She kisses him, so we’re treated to more of the show’s trademark disgusting kissing noises (seriously, why must we hear these mouth sounds? Why do so many shows make the stomach-churning mistake of amplifying spit and tongues and smacking lips, turning kissing into something more squeamish than romantic?). As the portal opens behind him, she tells him she loves him and to close his eyes, then she stabs him with the sword. He gets sucked into Acathla (in what is probably the most awkward looking special effect this show has ever and will ever employ) and is gone. Buffy stares in disbelief at the now-inert statue that’s just eaten her boyfriend, then dissolves into tears. And I’m posting a screencap, because I love Sarah Michelle Gellar’s cry face. She has one of the best cry faces out there:

“A file named ‘Buffy Cry Face.png’ already exists. Do you want to replace it?”

Buffy walks home to the sound of Sarah McLachlan’s “Full of Grace.” We see Joyce go into Buffy’s room, where she finds the closet ransacked and a letter we never get to see, but which we can assume is Buffy saying, “I’m out of here.”

The Scoobies convene outside of the school. Willow is in a wheelchair and her head is still bandaged, and Giles has two splinted fingers and a cut on his head, which seems like a pretty good outcome for having been tortured by a sadistic vampire. Nobody has seen Buffy. They went to the mansion, but no one was there, so they all throw up theories. Willow knows that her spell worked, because she could feel it, and Cordelia agrees, because the orb glowed. Xander suggests that the cure didn’t work and Buffy had to kill Angel (and looking at his face, you fucking know that he knows that’s not how it went down). Willow optimistically hopes that the spell did work and Buffy and Angel ran away together. Giles does not look thrilled at this prospect, because, you know. The dude killed his girlfriend and tortured him, let’s not get all excited about him getting a happy ending. I’m on his side in this one. Basically, none of them are ready to accept that Buffy could be dead (or maybe sucked into hell with Angel, which is a possibility I don’t think any of them ever bring up next season when she comes home). As Sarah McLachlan’s music swells majestically in the background, Willow says:

Willow: “She’ll be here in a while.”

And she doesn’t believe it, and none of them believe it. The camera pans back to reveal Buffy watching her friends from the street. She turns away and walks down the sidewalk, then we cut to Buffy on a bus, headed for parts unknown, past the “Now leaving Sunnydale” sign.

Sarah McLachlan could ask me to adopt a hundred dogs right now, and I would say yes. That’s how sad I am.

And that’s how season two ends. Even with as amazing as the show continues to be, I’m not sure anything, even “The Gift”, tops this two-parter in terms of best season endings. Yes, Whistler is pointless and wastes time, and yes, some of the stuff doesn’t make sense on closer examination, but god, does it make you feel things. The second half of season two is where the show really finds its tone for the remaining seasons, and these episodes are the strongest example of that.

Double Steve Bonus Monday!

(Curry)

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S02E21: “Becoming: Part 1″

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone has not caught up on her work after vacation. 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.

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. 

So we’ve reached the one, dear reader. The big cry fest at the end of season two. The two-part conclusion that sets the tone for every season of Buffy that follows. I debated between doing them as one big post, or splitting them up as two separate posts. What I decided to do instead is split them up, but only by a few days. Keep an eye out for the next one soon.

The episode opens in an old timey kind of village area. Someone is doing a voiceover, but it’s nobody that we’ve really heard from before. It’s going to turn out to be this kind of cocky demon type person,  like an infernal Jiminy Cricket. For a set of episodes as strong as these, this was an incredibly weak opening.

We see Angel and a friend getting thrown out of a tavern, probably because Angel’s Irish accent is so terrible. He and his drunk friend make plans to go steal from his father, but then the friend passes out, leaving Angel to spot a beautiful woman standing in a gross alley where she definitely should not be. It’s Darla, and she’s set up a trap for dumb, drunk young aristocrats. Darla tells Angel that she could show him the world, and they hop  on a flying carpet, and Genie and that little monkey are there. No, wait, I’m getting something mixed up here.

For some reason, maybe it’s the horrible accent, Darla finds Angel just irresistible enough to turn him into her companion for centuries. These vampires move fast with these kinds of decisions, I’m telling you. She makes a way larger than necessary cut across the top of her boobs; I don’t understand why vampires always are going for the tits. Angel drinks her blood, and we flash forward  to Sunnydale, where he watches Buffy kill a bunch of vampires in the cemetery. Xander is patrolling with Buffy, and by patrolling I mean I think he got knocked out, because he was on the ground behind a tombstone. Buffy’s bummed because she didn’t get a chance to kill Angel, and Xander asks her if she’s really that eager to meet him again. Well, Xander, Angel did kill your friend,  and Buffy’s been saying for about a thousand episodes now that she’s finally ready to confront him. But you’re right, she might not be exactly sure on the timeline.

Buffy mentions to Xander that she hasn’t started studying for finals yet, and Xander panics, because he’d completely forgotten about them. Buffy reassures him with a blithe:

Buffy: “Look on the brightside; it’ll all be over, soon.”

And from the shadows, to himself, Angel says aloud:

Angel: “Yes, my love. It will.”

I don’t understand why villains talk to themselves when they’re being sneaky. I get that if they didn’t say stuff out loud, we wouldn’t get their internal process, but it seems like Buffy could have just turned around and gone like, “hold up, Xander, I think I hear Angel,” and then she could have gone over and found him and beat the shit out of him to death, and then the last two episodes of the season would be unnecessary. But I’m glad that’s not how it happens, because I like the last two episodes.

After the opening credits, we see some archaeologist type people. They’re uncovering an artifact about the size of a refrigerator, and Giles shows up.  He’s there because some guy in Washington, D.C., told the head archaeologist guy that Giles was the best authority on obscure stuff like this. Obviously, this is because he’s a Watcher,  but the more we hear of his resumé, the more it sounds like Sunnydale high school couldn’t have afforded to hire him. The guy didn’t even describe Giles as the leading expert on artifacts in the country, or even in California. He just said “the leading expert.”  so are we talking the leading expert in the world? And nobody on the school board, when they were looking at potential school librarians, thought, “this guy might be a little overqualified for the position. Are you sure we can afford him?”

But of course, Giles is humble and says that obviously that whole “leading expert” thing was an exaggeration.

Giles inspects the artifact and even takes a sample of dirt with a little paintbrush. What’s he gonna do with that? Run it back to the lab? Of all the resources we see the Scoobies develop over the course of the series, a sort of forensic facility is never one of those. Which seems odd, considering how good Willow is at science. You’d think they’d have some sort of witchy lab set up in the  basement of the Magic Box by season five. But I digress.

Giles asks the archaeology guy if they’ve tried to open the artifact. And the guy is like, “open?” and Giles points out to seam where it can be opened. Archaeology guy is stoked; he wants to open it right away and find out what’s inside. But Giles is like, “hold up, we need to translate these hieroglyphics.” Except he says in a Giles-y way. It’s pretty obvious that whatever is inside the artifact is something that Giles doesn’t want getting out.

In the cafeteria, Xander is reenacting the fight from the night before with fish sticks and toothpicks, the fish sticks being the vampire and Buffy, and the toothpick being her wooden stake. Buffy says she’s tired of people asking her if she’s ready to kill Angel. Thank you, Buffy. Your friends should listen to you.

Since Buffy is so freaked out about finals coming up, Willow suggests that after school, she and Buffy should study.  Willow’s still teaching all of Ms. Calendar’s classes. When does Willow have time to go to her own classes? She must be missing some in order to fit teaching into her schedule. This seems like a pretty unfair burden to put on a student. Unless Willow has enough credits to graduate early, she can’t miss all of these classes in her junior year. Or maybe the school plans on letting her make the classes up in her senior year. Either way, this whole Willow-the-teacher thing is still pretty messed up.

Since Xander and Cordelia are all  giggly and touchy, and Willow is sitting in Oz’s lap, when Snyder comes into the cafeteria he starts complaining about public displays of affection.

Snyder: “These public displays of affection are not acceptable in my school. This isn’t an orgy, people. It’s a classroom.”

Buffy: “Yeah, where they teach lunch.”

Snyder’s had just about enough of Buffy’s sass, and threatens to kick her out of school. This will be important in the next episode.

Willow asks Buffy if she wants to come over to study after school, too. Buffy is noncommittal; she thinks she should patrol because Angel is gonna show up when she least expects it. How weird must it be for the other Scoobies, knowing that any night could be the night that Buffy has the massive showdown with her evil undead ex? I mean, they must accept that she could die at any time. That’s kind of what being a Slayer is all about. But going up against Angel, in a hugely emotional battle, when their strength is pretty evenly matched, it just seems like the risk is higher.

We cut to a Gothic cathedral where Drusilla, dressed in some medieval middle-class garb, has come to pray. She goes into the confessional, where she tells the priest that it’s been two days since her last confession. Except it’s not the priest. The priest is dead, because Angel is on the other side of the little screen, having just eaten the dude. Drusilla confesses that she’s having visions again, so this is clearly something that she’s been worried about for a long time. Her latest was a premonition that came true about a mine cave-in. Her family has basically told her she’s an abomination; only God should see things before they happen. She pours her heart out to Angel, thinking he’s the priest, and he urges her to be evil, because that’s God’s plan for her. She’s understandably freaked out by this, and begs him to help her. But even though he gives her an act of contrition to perform, she’s obviously still afraid that what he said is true.

In the present day, Drusilla returns to the mansion, having just eaten an old man that has not agreed with her. She tells Spike and Angel that the moon told her there’s something evil at the Museum. Angel is impressed, and asks her if she can see all of that in her head. Spike replies:

 Spike: “No, you ninny, she read it in the morning paper.”

Is the morning paper for vampires the late edition for normal people?

Angel reads the write up in the paper, and says something about the world screaming. Which means he probably knows what’s in the artifact. Or I could be misremembering that. He might find out later. But I do think it’s weird how all of the creatures in Sunnydale seem to have this universal knowledge of dark artifacts and horrible things that will end the world. Is there a class they take?  Is there a special paper just for vampires? Is that the one that Spike was talking about? And if so, does the morning paper come out at night and the late addition come out at dawn?

These are things I need answers for.

In the computer lab, Willow is trying to encourage Buffy,  even though Buffy is really, really bad at studying.  Buffy drops her pencil and it rolls into the crack between the desk and the filing cabinet where we know the disk that contains the spell to restore Angel’s soul is. Buffy leans down to get the pencil out of the crack, and it seems like she’s going to miss the disk yet again. But then she has a moment of déjà vu. She lets the pencil go again to fall into the crack, and this time she reaches down and finds the disk. She gives it to Willow. Willow doesn’t recognize it, so she puts it into the computer to see if it’s something that belonged to Ms. Calendar. As the text comes up on screen, Buffy sees the word restoration, and Willow explains that Ms. Calendar wasn’t a practicing witch, but Buffy cuts her off.

Buffy: “Willow…”

Willow: “Oh boy…Oh boy…Oh boy.”

We cut to someone running through the forest, and we can tell that it’s Angel from the grunting.  Angel has a very recognizable grunt.  Someone is chanting around a corpse all dressed in white. A few recaps ago, there was some confusion in the comments about who the Roma girl was that Angel killed. Some people thought she was Drusilla, and I can see where they might have gotten that idea:

That does look a lot like Drusilla, to be fair.

Mingled with the grunting and the running and the primal drum music is an old lady chanting. She has the orb of Thesulah in a circle of candles,  You know it’s some spooky shit when there’s candles. Angel collapses by a fire in the Roma camp. A guy comes up and he’s like “Hey, by the way, you have a soul now, and you feel this pain for all these people that you killed.”

In the library Buffy and Willow give Giles the spell Ms. calendar worked on. Xander isn’t thrilled by  the discovery, but Cordelia points out that it’s a good thing. After all, now they can restore Angel’s soul, and he’ll stop being such a scary Big Bad. Giles isn’t sure that it can be done; the spell requires a ” greater knowledge” of dark magic than he has.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t there an entire episode in this season about how great Giles was at dark magic? And if Ms. Calendar knew how to do the spell, but she wasn’t able to overcome the dark magic that Giles was able to dabble in, then how is he not able to do the spell?

Willow mentions that she knows a little bit about magic now, since she’s been researching the dark arts  “for fun”.  And Giles makes this face:

remember what I just said about how Giles got mixed up in the dark arts when he was a teenager? Well, here’s Willow telling Giles, “hey I’m getting mixed up with the dark arts as a teenager!” This begins a theme that we’re going to see throughout the series. There are going to be numerous occasions where Giles tells Willow that she shouldn’t be messing around with magic (weirdly there’s a track on Anthony Stewart Head’s latest album titled “Don’t Mess With Magic”, which simultaneously reminds me of both Giles and King Uther from Merlin), and Willow’s like “no, I got this.” By the beginning of season seven, she starts to get that, hey, maybe Giles was right all along. But it’s gonna be a bumpy four more seasons before we get there.

Buffy agrees with Giles. She doesn’t want Willow to put herself in danger. But Willow is adamant that she’s the only person that can make the spell work and restore Angel’s soul.

Xander: “Hi! For those of you who just tuned in, everyone here is a crazy person. So, this spell might restore Angel’s humanity?  Well here’s an interesting angle…. Who cares?”

Buffy: “I care.”

Xander: ” Is that right?”

Giles: ” Let’s not lose our perspective here, Xander.”

Xander: “I’m perspective guy.  Angel’s a killer.”

Willow: “Xander…”

Buffy: “It’s not that simple.”

Xander: “What? All is forgiven? I can’t believe you people.”

Cordelia: “Xander has a point.”

Xander: “You know, just for once I wish you would support me, and I realize right now that you were embarrassed, so I’m gonna get back to the point. Which is that Angel needs to die.”

Giles: “Curing Angel seems to have been Jenny’s last wish.”

Xander: “Yeah, well, Jenny’s dead.”

This comment causes Xander and Giles get into a shouting match, which threatens to turn physical. Everybody tries to stop the fight all at once, which just leads to more shouting, until Buffy shouts louder than everybody and starts giving people wounded looks.

Yet again, I find myself on the Xander’s Right train. I’ve never understood everyone’s willingness to just forgive Angel and do whatever it took to get him ensouled again. He killed their friend, and by the end of this two-parter, he’s trying to actively end the world. At what point do you put a rabid dog down? Is it the first time he bites someone, or is it after hundreds of years of biting someones? They all know that Angel was never a great guy before he ran afoul of the Roma, and that the only thing that’s keeping that in check is a spell that can very easily go wrong. Everybody gets that Buffy is in love with Angel, but sometimes we love people who are bad for us. Rather than letting Buffy learn this lesson, her friends do everything they can to make it possible for her to get back together with this guy. It’s no wonder the Buffy continues to have a series of dysfunctional relationships after this; she’s locked in an abusive relationship that literally all but one of her friends is encouraging her to stay in. (#6)

Let’s talk for a minute about how willing Giles is to aid in Operation Fix Angel. Out of any of the Scoobies, Giles is the one who’s lost most to Angel. He’s willing to entertain the idea of saving Angel, despite the fact that Angel killed Ms. Calendar, but why? Because it would make Buffy feel better, and he also knows better than the rest of the Scoobies how it feels to lose somebody that you love. He doesn’t want Buffy to go through that pain. He’s willing to sacrifice his own vengeance just to spare Buffy some unhappiness, leading me to flag this as an example of #2, because that’s not the type of sacrifice you just make for no reason. It’s definitely not a “fatherly” instinct, because no father worth his salt, no matter how much it would hurt his daughter, would encourage her to help a now-violent ex return to boyfriend status. Giles isn’t thinking right, but it’s because the seed of #2 has already been planted.

Buffy says that what happened to Angel wasn’t his fault, and Xander points out that what happened to Ms. Calendar was. Let’s go back and examine what Buffy just said. What happened to Angel wasn’t his fault? The reason he got curse in the first place was because he was running around killing people. And yes, that’s what vampires do, but they’re still responsible for their actions. He took particular delight in torturing people, so it wasn’t just an “I need to grab a quick bite” thing. So yes, what happened to Angel was his fault. Maybe not losing his soul this time, or being turned into a vampire in the first place, but really, but this whole thing is his fault.

Xander accuses Buffy of glossing over Ms. Calendar’s murder just because she wants to get her boyfriend back. And that’s exactly what everybody is doing, except Xander and to a point, Cordelia. Buffy leaves and everyone stands around in the sad music.

At the archaeology guy’s lab, the music turns spooky and suspenseful. He hears whispering from the artifact, just before Drusilla attacks him and eats him. Angel and his vampire friends are there are to take the artifact.

In Buffy’s room, Buffy  is on the phone, talking smack about Xander with Willow. Buffy is getting ready to go out patrolling, and when she looks through her stakes, she finds the ring that Angel had given her. More sad music.

Out and about in the dark of the night, Buffy senses that danger might be afoot:

Yay! It’s not danger it’s Kendra!  Well I guess she would be dangerous if you were a vampire.  but Buffy isn’t a vampire and is glad to see her, even though her appearance portends the rise of a very big  scary.

Back at the mansion, Angel shows off his newly acquired, creepy, hieroglyphics-bedecked occult artifact. Spike’s not that impressed:

Spike:  “it’s a big rock. Can’t wait show my friends. They don’t have a rock this big.”

Angel schools Spike on what the artifact is. It’s the Acathla,  a demon who had been sent to earth to swallow it up. A really brave knight  jammed a sword through his heart, turning him to stone. He’s inside the giant artifact thing, which  turns out to be a sarcophagus.  the stone demon still has a sword in its heart — wait, how did the knight know where the demons heart was? It could have been anywhere. It could’ve been in his foot. It could have been in his dick. Demons aren’t people, and they have all sorts of different parts.

Whatever. If someone who’s worthy pulls the sword out of the stone demon it will come to life and destroy the world, like some kind of reverse King Arthur, sending everyone to hell.

Giles gets off the phone with the Museum to report that the archaeologist guy is dead, murdered by vampires. Willow is concerned about the whole drag-me-to-hell thing that’s going to happen to the world if the Alcathla wakes up. Giles explains that demons live in a parallel dimension, and if the Alcathla  draws a single breath, he’ll create a vortex and suck everyone into that dimension, where they all will suffer eternally.

So obviously, this is something that the Scoobies want to put a stop to.

Buffy says that the spell to restore Angel’s soul is their only hope. Kendra disagrees, siding with Xander on the whole let’s kill Angel thing. Buffy points out that while she’s willing to fight Angel and kill him if she needs to, if she’s unsuccessful (read: she dies in the attack), the only way to stop Angel from destroying the world is probably Ms. Calendar’s spell, because Angel-with-a-soul isn’t like to plunge Earth into a demon realm.

Okay, Buffy has a point there.

Willow isn’t psyched about the idea of being the world’s only hope. But Kendra points out that she doesn’t have to be; they have  a sword that was blessed by the knight who vanquished the Alcathla in the first place. Giles just totally geeks out about the sword,  but agrees that it’s their last line of defense. He asks  Willow how long she needs to get everything for the spell, and she says about a day. She also needs an Orb of Thesulah, but she doesn’t know what it is.

Giles: “A spirit vault for rituals of the undead. I’ve got one…I’ve been using it as a paperweight.”

If you haven’t already made this connection, prepare to get your heart ripped out. The only reason Angel found out that Ms. Calendar was planning to restore his soul was because she went to a New Age shop to buy an orb of Thesulah.  If she’d just told Giles what she was doing, he could have been like, “I’ve got an orb of Thesulah,” and she would have never died. Giles had the key to preventing Jenny’s death the entire time.

Willow apologizes to Buffy that since she’s got this whole do-a-magic-spell-to-restore-a-vampire’s-soul project going on, she won’t be able to help Buffy study for finals.

 Buffy: “Eh, I’ll wing it. Of course, if we go to hell by then, I won’t have to take them. Or maybe I’ll be taking them forever.”

Angel has to perform a ritual before he can open the Alcathla, suggesting that they’ve got some time to plan before it happens.

Some vampire henchmen bring Angel a trussed up human. Angel plans to drink the human’s blood, at which point he should be able to pull out the sword. He gives a big dramatic speech:

 Angel: “I will drink. The blood will wash in me, over me, and I will be cleansed. I will be worthy to free Acathla. Bear witness as I ascend. As I become.”

he bites the dude and drinks his blood, and some gets on his hand.

Angel: “Everything that I am, everything that I have done, has led me here.”

He’s about to grab the sword when we cutaway. It’s a flashback to Angel, filthy, in an alleyway. He sees a rat, which he’s obviously going to eat, because that’s what vampires do when they don’t want to eat people. For some reason, they prefer to eat rats. Why don’t they just eat something that isn’t cute?

A really annoying dude who seems like the member of the Rat Pack that nobody liked and didn’t invite to things, hops out of the shadows. He taunts Angel about being a vampire with a soul,  and takes some for a little walk. He tells Angel that instead of rats, he should probably be eating blood from a butcher shop. Something that he figures Angel hasn’t done because he hasn’t been out in the “real world”. But, uh, didn’t they have butcher shops way back in ye olden days? Why wouldn’t Angel have come to this conclusion on his own?

Annoying dude’s name is Whistler. Because I guess that’s just what a vampire sidekick is called these days, I guess. See also, Blade.  Whistler tells Angel that he has a choice. He can either keep skulking around, eating rats, or he can do something good with his life. Then Whistler tells Angel that there’s something he should see.

Cut to  Angel in a crappy car with blacked out windows, wearing filthy clothes, pulling up in front of a high school and generally acting suspicious.

In the non-TV world, the police are already en route.

The thing Whistler wants Angel to see is Buffy.  Only this is a younger version of Buffy, who acts a lot like Cordelia.

She’s expecting a guy to crawl on his hands and knees to ask her to a dance later (no, really, literally crawl), so she hangs around on the steps. She’s approached by a guy in a suit and tie. Buffy’s concerned that she’s been caught for some shoplifting that she’s done, but the guy tells her that she has to come with him because it’s really important. Because of her destiny. He tells her that she is the chosen one, and that she alone can stop the vampires. Buffy’s response?

 Buffy: “Huh?”

Cut to  a  graveyard at night, where Buffy artlessly  fights a vampire as Angel watches from the shadows. She ultimately manages to stab the vampire in the heart, but it takes a couple tries. This is the first time she’s slayed.

So in this version of the Buffy mythos, Buffy’s first Watcher is not Donald Sutherland (like a WB show was realistically going to get Donald Sutherland. I have to give them some leeway here), but the guy from Office Space who gets fired, paralyzed, and invents that stupid “jump to conclusions” mat.  So, serious downgrade from the movie, and serious upgrade when Buffy moves to Sunnydale and gets the hot Watcher.

Still in flashback, and still in Angel’s POV, we see Buffy arguing with her mom about coming home late. Joyce blames Buffy’s boyfriend  for her lateness, and Buffy goes into the bathroom where there’s a giant big window for some reason. Because who doesn’t love the idea of their neighbor being able to watch them pee? She stands at the mirror and cries as she listens her parents fighting about how to raise her, and Angel watches the whole time.

Angel tells whistler that he wants to help Buffy, and Whistler says that Buffy must be prettier than the last Slayer. Gross. Angel asks Whistler to train him, and Whistler agrees.

Can we discuss for a minute how creepy this addition to the Buffy/Angel  “romance” is? The first time I watched the series, I thought to myself, “wow, he was in love with her before they ever met.” Now, I think to myself, “wow, he was basically stalking a 16-year-old. And then he fell in love with her. And then he followed her to a new town when she moved. And then he got involved with her without telling her that he’d stalked her before. This is messed up.” Some commenters disagreed when I said that Angel was as bad as Edward Cullen; well, is pretty Cullen-like behavior. despite the attempt to make us buy this as romance, labeling this as #9.

Back at the Alcathla,  Angel  is still monologuing, because The Incredibles hasn’t come out yet, so he doesn’t understand the danger.

 Angel: “I have strayed. I have been lost. But Alcathla  redeems me. With this act,  we will be free.”

Angel grabs the sword and there’s a lot of lightning. But after a fade for commercial, we see that the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. Spike sing-songs:

 Spike: “Someone wasn’t worthy.”

Angel is furious, Dru is about to have a meltdown, and Spike thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

At school, Buffy’s taking her finals. A cloaked figure enters the classroom. It’s a vampire, and she tells Buffy to go to Angel that night or more people will die, before flinging off her cloak and self-immolating in front of the entire class. First, I think those kids should get a do-over on their exam, because that’s a pretty big distraction. Second, this was just seen by everybody, and they’re all still going to go about their lives in Sunnydale for the rest of the entire show and barely ever talk about any supernatural stuff that happens in their midst. What. The. Fuck. (#8)

In the library, Buffy argues with Giles, saying that since more people are going to die if she doesn’t go to Angel, she kind of has to. Kendra volunteers to go with Buffy, but Buffy thinks it’s better if Kendra stays behind to protect the others. She also points out that if Angel is busy fighting her, he can’t do the ritual. Willow says she needs more time to figure out the spell, but Buffy tells her that if it’s going to happen she has to do it right away. So, no pressure, Willow. Giles tells Buffy to hold Angel off until the spell works, and that she’ll know when it does. Cordelia thinks Buffy should wait in the library until they know if it works, but Buffy won’t risk the lives of anymore innocent people. Kendra gives Buffy her stake,  which she has named Mr. Pointy.

Angel meets Buffy in the graveyard. He tells her that she’s the one thing in this dimension that he’s going to miss, before taunting her by saying he wants to get back together. They launch into a fight. Meanwhile, the Scoobies start the ritual. The library is soon flooded with vampires. Cordelia and Willow run from them, and Xander and Kendra fight. Giles gets a pretty good shot in, shattering a vase or something over a vampire’s head. One of them pushes a bookcase over, trapping Willow beneath it, and Xander saves the petrified Cordelia from a vampire, but he’s been bitten. Naturally, Giles gets knocked out.

In the cemetery, Angel has caught on to the fact that Buffy is trying to stall. But Buffy hasn’t caught on to the fact the Angel is doing the same thing:

 Angel: “You never learn do you? This wasn’t about you. This was never about you. And you fall for it every single time!”

Buffy realizes that this has all been a trap (P.S., if she’d followed Cordelia’s advice, none of this would be happening), and runs to save her friends. Drusilla joins the other vampires in the library and they back off at her command. Kendra is gearing up for a fight, which Drusilla isn’t terribly good at, but she uses some sort of hypnotic power and slashes Kendra’s throat. Dru the vampires to get what they came for, which is Giles. They drag him off, unconscious. You know, considering how many times he gets knocked out, it’s a miracle that he can remember any of this mystical knowledge the vampires are after.

Next comes what is one of my favorite visuals of the entire series: Buffy’s  futile slow-motion run through the halls of Sunnydale high to save her friends:

 

This scene is so, so heartbreaking. The look on her face as she’s running through the hallway is one of hopeful determination. She’s going to save her friends. She can imagine no other way that this is going to go down. She’s going to win and save everybody. And she’s going to do this because she’s the Slayer, and she’s driven to protect the people she loves. She has no idea at this point that it’s too late. She still has hope.

Unfortunately Whistler, who turns out to be the unseen narrator from the beginning of the episode, starts talking in voiceover. I don’t know why Joss Whedon, when writing this episode, thought it would be a great idea to frame it with musings from a character that we’ve never seen before, and will never see again. I do know that Whistler is obnoxious. He’s the overused fedora guy who talks in stereotypical tough guy speech, who we’re supposed to see as an irreverent mentor with all this wisdom. He’s a tiresome combination of cool and dorky; the indispensable geek with a cocky attitude who guides people to their destinies.

Gosh, I wonder why Joss Whedon would have chosen such a character to become a canon device in what is, at this point, the most important episodes of the series. It’s a mystery for the ages.

The voiceover isn’t even that good:

 Whistler: “Bottom line is, even if you see ‘em comin’,  you’re not ready for the big moments.  No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what, are we helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come; you can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are. You’ll see what I mean.”

This unsolicited input from a character who can’t even be classified as “minor”, totally intrudes on this “big moment”:

Buffy has just found Kendra dead. A Slayer, just like herself. Buffy has died before, so she knows it can happen. She knows that Slayers die. But this is the first time there have been two Slayers. It’s the first time that Buffy isn’t the only one of her kind. And the only person who truly understands her experience, the only  other Slayer on the planet, is dead. With just silent facial expressions, Sarah Michelle Geller portrays everything Buffy must be going through at the moment: shock, despair at her failure, and a new realization of her own mortality.

And we have to listen to this low-rent Dean Martin jackass talking over the whole thing, because Joss Whedon loves the self inserts.

As Buffy kneels over Kendra’s body, someone shouts freeze, and a gun appears on screen before  we cut to the end credits.

Barring the unnecessary addition of Whistler, this episode is so solid, it doesn’t feel like its 45 minute runtime. With the little, breathtaking  allusions to what could have happened and what will happen in the future (Giles’s Orb of Thesulah,  Willow’s introduction to dark magic), it must’ve been hell to wait a full week to see what happens next.

#LegionXIII Rome watch along S01E02 “How Titus Pullo Brought Down The Republic” or “The One Where Titus Gump Gumps His Way Through Western Civ”

Quick rundown of the episode: Casual rapist Mark Anthony returns to rome, having been “elected” People’s Tribune. So that means he has the power to veto shit in the senate, which is good news for Cesar, but bad news for Pompey. To become tribune, Mark Antony is subjected to a long ass ceremony, the flashbacks to which are hilarious, because dude just wants to get to Atia’s house to get his knob thoroughly shined up by a consenting women this time.

Pullo and Vorenus take little lord Fauntleroy back to his mother. Atia manages to choke back her vomit at the idea of eating dinner with soldiers, and in a discussion about politics, Vorenus turns out to be FOX News’s convenient plebeian friend, talking about how he thinks the system that’s actively oppressing him is amazing and good for everyone. Pullo, however, becomes a heavy-drinking, hard-fucking, gambling-addicted junkie within two hours inside the city walls. He gets into a bar fight that ends up in an incredibly graphic emergency skull surgery on Vorenus’s kitchen table. The whole town comes out and watches what is basically going to be the most talked about thing on that street for centuries.

Vorenus returns home to find his wife holding a baby that has definitely been born recently and couldn’t possibly be his kid, but surprise, it’s really his grandson. But surprise again, it’s actually his wife’s son, we just don’t know with whom yet.

Mark Antony hands out some sass to Pompey, Scipio, Cicero, and Cato. Basically, try anything, and Cesar is going to be marching into town so fast you won’t know you’re dead until you get the invitation to your own funeral. Scipio breaks ranks and an all out brawl begins in the Senate when he’s like, “Hey, we should sentence Cesar to death if he doesn’t plan on coming back here and apologizing.” The dugouts fucking empty, but it’s okay, because in all the chaos, nothing got finalized. If Mark Antony can just make it to the Senate during the next session to use his veto, then everything is going to be great. Pompey is basically like, “I cannot stress enough that Mark Antony needs to get here without incident. And I’m talking, if you see a pothole in the street, throw your body over it so he doesn’t trip because if there’s any hold up or he thinks he’s being sabotaged, Cesar is going to come back and spank your ass.

Antony is on the lookout for any excuse to run back to Cesar like, “Your friends want to kill you and they tried to kill me when I tried to stop them from killing you, but it wasn’t real dramatic, it was still in the ‘on paper’ stage when I left.” He has his men, including Vorenus and Pullo, surrounded him like Secret Service dudes to keep him safe on his walk to the Senate, and wouldn’t you fucking know it, one of the dudes from Pullo’s bar fight is in the crowd, and he pulls a knife. Pullo subdues the dude, but never bothers to mention to anyone that this guy wasn’t out to kill Mark Antony. He makes himself out to be this big hero as the streets descend into chaos, while Vorenus just gets stabbed for his troubles. Pullo takes all the glory involved in being the dude who rescued Mark Antony, and puts in motion Cesar’s return to Rome to hand Pompey his ass.

In other words, a lot of bad Roman shit could have been avoided if Titus Pullo had just had his gambling addiction under control. Instead, Cesar crosses the Rubicon like a mom with a trash bag coming to clean up your room. And Pompey is the room.

 My favorite part of the episode: Women handling shit the way men would handle shit. It might sound terrible to say I like to see women push each other around or say horrible things about setting dogs on people, but damn, these ladies aren’t fucking around. It’s nice to see Niobe shouting “My father’s cock! How’s that for tone?” at her awful husband, or Octavia loudly imitating her mother’s orgasms over dinner. It’s good to know that if someone fucks with Atia, she’s got dogs trained to handle that. They’re flawed and cruel to each other and, yeah, violent, but I’m loving their negative emotions because oh my god, they’re female characters who aren’t written to be the perfect fantasy for dudes who think all their ex-girlfriends are crazy. They’re real people.

My least favorite part of the episode: Despite the whole “Vorenus comes home to slut shame his wife and daughters” bullshit? Nitpick-o-rama time: Vorenus has sex with his wife, his lactating wife, and doesn’t notice that she’s, you know. Lactating. In case you’ve never heard or thought about it before, a person’s tits leak for what seems like ever, we’re talking will-my-shirt-ever-be-dry-again levels of insidious, seeping moisture that happens uncontrollably in hormone fueled situations like getting drilled just feet from a crib full of howling baby. How did he not notice? And I’m not buying that he’s just naive; they already have two kids. This was written by a dude who thought we could just gloss over that reality of boob-haver anatomy. But I can’t ignore that shit.

Favorite costume: Niobe’s nightgown.

Look at that. It’s almost translucent, so you know the fabric is light as air. It floats around her. I bet that muslin or linen or whatever is butter soft. I want this nightgown. I want to wear something as comfortable as that nightgown.

I covet that nightgown.

Team Atia or Team Servillia: “Casta! Fetch the dogs!” Team Atia, though Servillia wasn’t even in this episode, that I remember.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet:

#LegionXIII the giant ROME is always my fav character pic.twitter.com/Z751ItytqP

— Patrick E. Reynolds (@ThePatrickest) November 10, 2015

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? 

I could see Bronwyn coveting both the hair and the dress. I couldn’t catch her when she wasn’t blurry, though.

Guess Jess’s head canon. “Oh my  god, did you see how hurt Pullo looks every time someone says Vorenus isn’t his friend?”

Now go check out Bronwyn’s and Jess’s posts, and join us on Monday at 9 PM EST for season one, episode three, “An Owl In A Thornbush”. Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!