Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 89

The Big Damn Buffy Rewatch S02E14: “Innocence”

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone is considering moving to a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. 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.

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. 

PREVIOUSLY, ON BUFFY: Buffy got her v-card punched.

We open on Spike and Drusilla, who have just been humiliated in their fight against Buffy and Angel. Spike is mad at The Judge, who he feels is being lazy about their plan to destroy the world.

Seriously, Spike? The world? Come on. You live there, and you always chicken out about doing it at the last minute.

While Spike and The Judge argue, Drusilla falls to the ground, wailing Angel’s name. Spike asks her what she sees, but Drusilla just smiles.

Cut to Angel’s bed, where Buffy peacefully slumbers. She notices that Angel isn’t there, and and calls out for him. Meanwhile, Angel is in the alley, crawling around on the ground in the rain, calling out for her. Parallels, am I right?

A woman smoking in a doorway notices him and approaches, asking if he needs help. He rights himself and tells her he’s fine, before revealing his vamp face and biting her. I don’t know if he drinks her blood or what, because the whole thing is really quick, but when he pulls away, he exhales the smoke she had just inhaled, earning this episode a #20. He can’t force air out of his lungs by choice to give Buffy CPR in season one, but he can sure as hell smoke for cool effect.

Buffy goes home and sneaks inside, only to get caught by her mom, who says the dreaded, “You seem different.”

Definitely not because I was having sex or anything.

Back at the library, Xander busts in complaining about how the bus station wasn’t up to his classist standards, then realizes that he’s failed to read the room and everyone is super worried about Buffy and the fact that she hasn’t returned and how that almost certainly means The Judge was assembled. Xander is all for going to the factory to look for Buffy and Angel, to which Cordelia says:

Cordelia: “And do what? Besides be afraid and die?”

Giles agrees with Cordelia, but Willow sides with Xander and they’re about to storm off to the factory when Buffy comes in. Giles asks why she didn’t call to let them know she was okay, and she makes up a story on the fly about getting separated from Angel while hiding in the sewers. She tells them that The Judge is all put together like the world’s shittiest jigsaw puzzle, and Giles tells everyone to go to class like they’re not going to be sitting there worried about being sizzled to death by Big Blue.

In the hall, Buffy is troubled that Angel still hasn’t contacted her, and as she expresses this to Willow, Ms. Calendar lurks behind them, eavesdropping. Do all the people in this show have sex radar? I legitimately have two friends who I’m not sure have ever had sex, because I’ve never asked them if they have, they’ve never mentioned it, and you can’t tell by looking at a person. Is this something everyone can tell, except for me?

In the factory, Dru is meddling with forces she doesn’t understand. Like, astronomy. And reality.

Dru: “I’m naming all the stars.”

Spike: “You can’t see the stars, love. That’s the ceiling. Also, it’s day.”

Dru: “I can see them. But I’ve named them all the same name and there’s terrible confusion.”

That’s one of my favorite Dru moments. Again, this totally falls under #14, because it’s this played up portrayal of whimsically evil crazy, but there’s just something so vulnerable about Dru. I would want very much for her to turn me into a vampire, and we could dress up in matching Gothic Lolita stuff and just be generally creepy.

Spike asks Dru if she’s “seen” anything else, like what happened to Angel, for example, and wouldn’t you know it, he shows up. And he’s got his super sarcastic bitchy pants on, too. He calls Spike scum and says he’ll always be wherever injustice is. Spike is all excited because The Judge is right there and can burn him up. Except, oh snap, Angel can’t be burned, because his humanity tank is on E with a warning light that’s been on since thirty miles ago. Drusilla and Spike are psyched to have their friend back, sans soul. And he’s smoking now (#20) and that fully confirms that he is now playing for team evil (#22).

Angel isn’t interested in Spike and Dru’s plan to destroy the world. Which I can understand, because the world is kind of where they all are. I’ve never quite been sold on the “we’re going to destroy the world” plot that various baddies come up with in TV and movies. It’s like, okay, genius, but how is it a win to destroy the world? You’ll die. You won’t even get to gloat.

Anyway, Angel wants to kill Buffy real, real bad, because now that his soul is gone he’s super disgusted at how human she made him feel. And it’s payback time or something. Honestly, since he uses “Yeah, baby, I’m back,” in this scene already, he might as well have said, “It’s payback time.” Like, 99% of Angelus’s lines are Hollywood cliches of the highest calibre.

Back at the library, everyone is researching, except for Willow, who is on the phone to Buffy, and Buffy, who is not in the library because she’s somewhere else talking on the phone to Willow.

Willow: “Don’t even say that. Angel is not dead.”

Xander: “Say hi for me.”

Fuck you, Xander. Fuck you so much. Earlier in this episode, you were all for going to find Buffy because you cared so much about her (he even accused Giles of being born without feelings because he wasn’t rip-roarin’ to go off to their messy deaths) and now it’s like, “Gosh, I’m glad Buffy is in this emotional turmoil, because if Angel’s dead the line to ride her vagina just got way shorter!” (#5)

Willow explains to Giles and Xander that Buffy is super freaked out by her boyfriend’s disappearance, but that she’s going to show up at the library later. Xander is frustrated with the book he’s reading, and goes to get another. He runs into Cordelia in the stacks, and she points out that while he was snapping at her earlier, he was about to run off and risk his life for Buffy:

Cordelia: “I know, you were too busy rushing off to die for your beloved Buffy. You’d never die for me.”

So, Cordelia legitimately cares about Xander, in a boyfriend/girlfriend way, and wants him to care back. Hey, remember how there was somebody else who wanted him to care about her in a boyfriend/girlfriend way?

Willow runs into the hallway, her spirit completely broken because she hasn’t yet realized that she’s way, way too good for Xander, especially when she’s got Oz the thirty-year-old high schooler on standby.

Willow: “It’s against all laws of God and man. It’s Cordelia! Remember the We Hate Cordelia Club? Of which you are the treasurer?”

Xander tells her to calm down, because they were just kissing and it didn’t mean that much. But Willow isn’t going to let him brush her hurt feelings aside, telling him that what it means is that he’d rather be with a person he hates than be with her.

Here’s the thing: I get Willow’s reaction. I get that she’s upset. But I’m disappointed that she felt as entitled to Xander’s affection as Xander feels entitled to Buffy’s affection. I remember watching this episode in the past and going, “Yeah, tell him, Willow! You deserve him more than Cordelia because you waited for him.” And now like, years and years later I’m going, “Chill out. Nobody stole your man. Stop acting like this.” Though less intense and outwardly antagonistic, Willow’s feelings of ownership over Xander are the same as Xander’s Nice Guy attitude toward Buffy.

Buffy goes to Angel’s apartment and finds him there, wearing leather pants for some reason. She’s so overjoyed to see that he’s alive, she doesn’t even notice it. But I feel like, even if I thought someone was dead for sixteen years, and they showed up on my doorstep tomorrow wearing leather pants, my first reaction would be, “Dead person! What’s up with those leather pants?” Because if someone who has never worn leather pants just suddenly starts wearing them, there’s a story there and I think most people would ask about it.

At first, Angel comforts her, saying he didn’t mean to scare her, while she clings to him and tells him how grateful she is that he’s alive. And then… things become…

I can barely stand to watch this scene, you guys. In response to Buffy’s worry, Angel tells her that he “took off” because the sex was so awful, he couldn’t stand to be around her. And as she tries to process everything he’s saying, she starts blaming herself. She asks if she was good, and he tears her down, then casually dismisses the sex they had as something that “happened,” and was “a good time.” Buffy is hurt and embarrassed, and as a last gambit she tells Angel that she loves him–and he says it back, laden with sarcasm.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to cradle a teenage Sarah Michelle Gellar to my breast and soothingly promise that everything is going to be all right so much in my life.

As with everything in this show, the story is made up of real teen fears/experiences, with a supernatural twist thrown at them. So when Angel becomes inexplicably cruel to her, we know that it’s because he’s turned evil. Buffy doesn’t. She’s having the heartbreaking experience that many, many people go through in their teen years and young adulthood; she’s finding out that sex doesn’t make the other person feel the same about you as you did about them, and that some people will say whatever it takes, pretend whatever they need to, in order to gain access to your body for sex.

Do we have a number for “Some of this shit is way too real?”

In a hotel room somewhere, Jenny Calendar’s uncle is wearing a shoe string for a tie and giving her a lecture on vengeance. She’s trying to make a case for saving Angel, because he could be helpful. But her uncle is like, whoops, he’s not cursed anymore:

Creepy Uncle: “Angel was meant to suffer, not to live as human. One moment of true happiness, of contentment, one moment where the soul that we restored no longer plagues his thoughts, and that soul is taken from him.”

So, Ms. Calendar is furious, because if Angel is evil now, bad stuff is going to go down, and her Uncle basically has to remind her that they’re not living in a musical comedy, they’re in a goddamn Shakespearean tragedy, complete with offensive stereotypes of minority groups.

But hold up. This is something that has always bugged me. Angel can’t have “one moment of true happiness, of contentment.” Here, that means having sex with Buffy. In season three we’ll see them making out and having to stop because, whoa, hormones and we might fuck your soul away again. But spending time with Buffy, being around her in that situation, none of it counts as “true happiness” until he puts his dick in her and has an orgasm. Uh… what? Does the soul get pushed through the vans deferens and shot out his possibly fanged urethra? Or is his love for Buffy not complete until he completes? Is sex with Buffy so important to Angel’s happiness that he can’t possibly feel joy or contentment if he’s not getting off physically? That’s fucked up.

Even more fucked up is when you consider that Angel is a (much) older man, sleeping with a teenage girl who removes his soul through the act of sexual intercourse. There’s a very weird Lolita dynamic there that is just super ooky to me. Either way you look at it, I’m tagging this both #6 and #9, for both setting up canon in which the hero’s love isn’t whole until he’s plugging the heroine’s hole, and for Angel apparently seeing it that way, too.

Willow returns to school and tells Xander that while she’s not okay with him hiding something so important from her and basically just daring to like someone who isn’t her or Buffy, they have to work together to solve this whole “no weapon forged” thing. Xander starts to get what sounds like a really good idea, but the power goes out and distracts them.

Good thing Angel is there! He tells Xander to go get everyone from the library, because he’s got something to show them. Xander runs off, and then one of the greatest scenes in television history happens.

As Willow approaches Angel, Xander suddenly understands:

And so does Ms. Calendar, who shows up with a cross out of nowhere:

…and finally, so does Willow. She’s the last to understand what’s happening, and she looks heartbreakingly betrayed.

Ms. Calendar warns Willow and Xander that Angel just isn’t Angel anymore. He corrects her, saying something like he hasn’t been himself in a long time or something. You get the gist. Then he says:

Angel: “I’ve got a message for Buffy.”

And from out of nowhere, Buffy says:

Buffy: “Why don’t you give it to me yourself.”

Angel explains that he’s going to kill all her friends. Buffy is hopeful that she’s going to reach something in Angel that’s still human, but no dice. While Angel is monologuing like the villain in The Incredibles, Xander sneaks up and flashes Ms. Calendar’s cross at him. Angel lets go of Willow then threatens Buffy, kisses her, and throws her into a wall. And Xander is like, “Buffy, are you okay?” and NO, OBVIOUSLY NOT XANDER GOD.

In the library, Buffy tells the gang that she knew something was wrong because of the way Angel had treated her earlier.

Jenny: “But you didn’t know he’d turned bad?”

Willow: “How did you?”

And the point goes to Willow. Jenny says she knew because she’d seen his face. So… you just roam the halls of Sunnydale High armed with a cross?

Well, that’s not a bad idea, actually.

But they kind of gloss past this when Giles says:

Giles: “If only we knew how it happened.”

Buffy: “What do you mean?”

Giles: “Well something set it off, some, some event must have triggered his transformation. If anyone would know, Buffy, it should be you.”

Buffy: “I don’t.”

Giles: “Well did anything happen last night that–”

Buffy: “Giles, please, I can’t–”

And Buffy gets up and runs out, with Giles calling after her. Remember how Willow was the last one to know that Angel was evil (well, besides Ms. Calendar). Well this time she’s horribly, terribly the first one to know what’s going on with Buffy.

Willow: “Giles, shut up.”

Despite Cordelia’s snark, Xander has formulated a plan, but he needs Cordelia’s help. Willow offers Oz’s van to help, in a sort of snooty way because it’s pretend like you don’t care day on Tiny Toons. Xander tells Cordelia to meet him in a half hour in “trashier” clothes than she’s already wearing (swoon). Giles says he can imagine what Buffy’s going through, and Willow puts the very quiet, very sad smackdown on that notion quick.

At the factory, Angel is bragging about how he really hurt the Slayer’s feelings, to which Spike is kind of like, uh, why didn’t you just kill her?

Drusilla: “You don’t want to kill her. You want to hurt her. Just like you hurt me.”

She’s thrilled about this, by the way. That’s how much Angel tortured her (we find out exactly how much in an episode of Angel, I believe, or possibly season 3 of this show. Or both).

Spike thinks Angel is really underestimating the severity of the whole “the Slayer could fuck up our plans” dynamic, but Angel tells him that he knows what he’s doing. He’s going to break Buffy down emotionally because she can’t be killed with force.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Buffy comes home, devastated and finally able to let her feelings out in the privacy of her room. She curls up in her bed and sobs, and it is here that I will bring up another teen vampire breakup, just to get some stuff off my chest. Despite all its problematic content, I’m rereading Twilight and I really like it. No, I don’t think Edward wasn’t creepy, but I also don’t think Angel isn’t creepy. I’ve always said there was a lot in common between Buffy and Twilight. There are a lot of readers who would say that Buffy was a stronger character than Bella because Bella was this girl who was completely destroyed by losing her boyfriend and Buffy was out kicking ass and stuff.

Okay.

But it takes Buffy like… the entire rest of the series to get over Angel. And you never get the sense that she ever will. And like Buffy and Angel, Bella fought vampires with Edward. Bella faced danger with him, then felt betrayed (sure, Edward didn’t leave because he turned evil, but still). So, I don’t get why Buffy’s experience is somehow less “wimpy,” or why we can’t accept that teenagers can get break up feels without being “weak.”

Back to business.

Buffy has vague dreams of slow breathing and blankets moving and fingers touching, and it’s surprisingly erotic, given that he’s a couple hundred years older than her and she’s a teenage girl (here again, Twilight comparison because it’s on my mind; in Twilight you never get a sense that Edward has matured beyond being a teenager; all of the vampires seem basically frozen in time. Angel is very clear that he’s a grown fucking man, weary of the world). The dream changes and Buffy is standing at a grave. Angel is there, and he tells her that she needs to see something. When Buffy turns, Jenny Calendar is standing behind her, dressed in funeral clothes.

When Buffy wakes up, she realizes that Ms. Calendar has something to do with Angel going evil. She marches mad-style into school and throws Jenny across a desk in front of a class of horrified students. Giles was already there talking to Jenny, and he freaks out on Buffy, saying she can’t just accuse people. That’s when Ms. Calendar opens up and spills the entire beans, saying she was sent to Sunnydale to keep Angel and Buffy apart.

Jenny Calendar first showed up in “I Robot, You Jane,” episode eight of season one. At that point, while there was romantic tension between Angel and Buffy, how could Jenny’s family have possibly known that Buffy and Angel would fall in love and get to that, ahem, moment of happiness? This feels like retconning in the first degree. First of all, it’s a giant leap that a Slayer would fall in love with a vampire. Second, it’s just a giant leap in general that two random people are going to fall into a love that defies the ages anyway.

Jenny confirms to Buffy that the nookie was the reason Angel went bad, but Giles can’t quite grasp the double meaning behind “moment of happiness.” He asks Buffy how she knows it was her fault that Angel had that moment of happiness and:

When the glasses come off, you know it’s serious.

Buffy tells Jenny to curse Angel again, and Jenny is like, no dice because nobody knows the magic anymore. Buffy says to take her to someone who can. Cut to creepy bolo tie uncle in his hotel room, smoking a pipe. The door opens and he’s like, “I knew she would bring you,” like he knows exactly who’s walking in. But he doesn’t, because it’s Angel. BLAM. You are dead, sir.

At the Sunnydale military base, Xander lies his way into the armory, saying he’s a soldier and Cordelia is a date he’s trying to impress. He knows how to do this because he wore that Army costume at Halloween and got turned into a real soldier. Get used to this, because Xander’s “I was a soldier for a couple hours, so I know military things” is  a plot point that get used at least twice more in the series.

While Willow and Oz wait in the van,  they are adorable:

Oz: “So do you guys steal weapons from the army a lot?”

Willow: “Well we don’t have cable, so we have to make our own fun.”

And also they are heart-melting and awkward. Willow asks Oz if he wants to make out with her and he says:

Oz: “Sometimes when I’m sitting in class, you know, I’m not thinking about class, because that would never happen. I think about kissing you. And it’s like everything stops. It’s like, it’s like, freeze-frame. Willow kissage. Oh, I’m not going to kiss you.”

Willow: “What? But… freeze-frame.”

Oz: “Well, to the casual observer it would appear that you’re trying to make your friend Xander jealous. Or even the score or something. And that’s on the empty side. See, in my fantasy, when I’m kissing you, you’re kissing me. It’s okay; I can wait.”

This is the kind of romantic hero we should want girls to want. Not a cold and possessive vampire. Not a tattooed bad boy who calls them bird names. We should want them to be with the guy who’s willing to go at an appropriate pace for both of them.

Buffy, Jenny, and Giles arrive at weird uncle’s hotel room to find him dead beneath a message from Angel:

 

I know this is supposed to be blood, but all I can think about is the women’s bathroom at the National Park Services  headquarter on Boston’s Freedom Trail. I was traumatized.

Giles: “He’s doing this deliberately, Buffy.”

Hate to interrupt, Giles, but… yeah, obviously. Or else that’s that most serendipitous splatter pattern in the world. Quick, someone get Dexter!

Giles: “He’s trying to make it harder for you.”

Buffy: “He’s only making it easier. I know what I have to do.”

Giles: “What?”

Really, Giles?

Usually the dialogue in Buffy is amazing. This is one of those cases where it totally isn’t. It makes Giles sound stupid because he’s pointing out something the audience already knows and which is totally obvious. It makes it seem like the writer believes the audience to be stupid; the audience wants to reach certain conclusions on their own. If the lines had been just, “He’s trying to make it harder for you.” “He’s only making it easier.” then we would know that she’s going to kill Angel. Instead we have the most thoughtful and analytical occult specialist on the show wondering what a vampire slayer is going to do to a vampire who’s killing all her friends.

Drusilla, Angel, and The Judge are headed out to cause mayhem, but Spike can’t go because he’s in a wheelchair and can’t escape to the sewers and shit like that. Angel is a total d-bag about it, so we’re like, “Grrr, ableist” and it helps us to hate Evil!Angel even more. Spike warns Angel that he’s going to eventually recover, subtext, there will be hell to pay, but Angel just laughs him off and they go on their merry way.

Back at Scoobie headquarters, Oz and Xander deliver a big crate, and Jenny Calendar wants to be helpful. Oh now you wanna be helpful?

Jenny: “Do you, uh, is there something I can do?”

Buffy: “Get out.”

Jenny: “I just wanna help.”

Giles: “She said get out.”

His face is the saddest.

The Scoobies go to the factory, where they find exactly what they were expecting; Angel isn’t there. Spike listens to them, but wisely hides in a corner. As they try to figure out their next step, Cordelia makes a comment about how people won’t line up to get killed. And then Oz is like, hey, you know where there are typically lines?

Cut to the movie theatre in the mall. Which is a really good idea. Lots and lots of people. Dru and Angel and The Judge emerge with some vampire pals and just start fucking shit up. Buffy and the gang announce their presence with a crossbow bolt to The Judge’s chest, and he’s all, ha ha, no weapon forged, remember? And she gets out the huge fucking bazooka that Xander and Cordelia liberated from the armory.

This is the part that’s never quite made sense to me, because I don’t think the script was very clear on it: a bazook is metal. It’s totally forged. So, is “no weapon forged” a mystical stipulation, or just an observation? “We tried a sword, we tried arrows, but no dice. No weapon forged can kill him. Write it down.” Buffy does say,

Buffy: “That was then. This is now.”

so it could be that just no weapon forged at the time was capable of doing it. But this is a show with spells and monsters and stuff, so for a long time I assumed it was like a fairytale catch, like they had to find a way around this thing and it would be totally obvious that he could be defeated with water or whatever.

Wait, if the judge can’t be killed, why are there any humans left on earth? Obviously he was contained at some point. If it wasn’t a mystical thing, why didn’t they just write down, “…but we figured it out, this is totally how you do it,” after the “no weapon forged” thing?

Whatever, let’s just move on.

Angel and Drusilla dive the fuck out of the way, while The Judge is standing there like, I’m acquainted with most weapons forged, so I’m pretty confident that this is going to go my way. And it doesn’t because Buffy blows him up. She tells the others to go and gather up the pieces of the judge and keep them apart in case he’s not dead.

Cordelia: “Pieces? We get the pieces? Our job sucks.”

The fire sprinklers go off, and Buffy pursues Angel through the freaking out crowd. When they finally meet up and fight, he tries to demoralize her into giving up by saying he was just pretending to love her and shit like that. And she says some stuff, but I’m really excited about the Quest for Camelot poster in the background!

The gist of the scene is that Buffy and Angel fight each other, but in a moment of weakness, Buffy can’t kill him. He gloats about it, so she kicks him super hard in the balls and says,

Buffy: “Give me time.”

while walking away like a stone cold badass.

Giles drives Buffy home to one of my all time favorite scenes in the entire show. He tells her that Angel will come after her, and that things are going to get bad. Then she says:

Buffy: “You must be so disappointed in me.”

Giles: “No. No, no I’m not.”

Buffy: “But this is all my fault.”

Giles: “I don’t believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly; you did, and I can. But I know that you loved him, and he, has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn’t have known what would happen. The coming months are going to be hard, I suspect on all of us. But if it’s guilt you’re looking for, Buffy, I’m not your man. All you will get from me is my support. And my respect.”

This. This is how people should react to teenagers during breakups with sexual partners. Look, I don’t want to place some artificial value on virginity, but it really does suck and hurt when you share something very intimate, for the first time, with someone you love only to have them turn out to be terrible to you and use it as a weapon later. I remember when the kid I lost my virginity to called me a whore during our breakup. I will never forget how cruel that felt, but the response I got from adults I talked to was, “What were you doing having sex in the first place? This is your screwup.” Instead of telling Buffy that she shouldn’t have had sex with Angel, Giles makes it clear that he understands why she made the choices she did, even though a Slayer sleeping with a vampire is probably not smart (hence the “rash” part). He doesn’t talk down to her like she’s a child that needs to be scolded because having sex is somehow unforgivable. He offers his support and makes it clear that he doesn’t think she did anything wrong.

This is one of the first scenes I’ll have in mind when we get to season four and I start talking about  #2 (LOL, talking about number two). I know a lot of people say, “Giles was a father figure, he didn’t have any other feelings for Buffy,” and while I don’t think this is a Buffy/Giles ship scene, I do think it points to the fact that while Giles is an older authority figure, he doesn’t view Buffy as a child he he has to protect, but as a near-adult capable of making life decisions without his guidance. I’m not saying that no parents on earth are capable of this, just that in this case it will feed into Giles viewing Buffy as a full-fledged adult when she transitions to college, and their relationship becoming less paternal, right up through their break-up in season six.

Yeah, I call it a break-up.

Anyway, we’ll contrast this scene with a parental reaction later this season.

Buffy and her mom have cocoa and cupcakes while they watch an old movie. Joyce asks Buffy what she did for her birthday, and Buffy says that she got older. Joyce says she seems the same, which kind of…how much attention have you been paying to your daughter, Joyce?

The episode ends with Buffy refusing to blow out her birthday candle, and it’s super depressing.

50 Shades Tie-In (Tie-Up?) Merchandise Blowout

Remember 2014? It was a shitty year for a lot of things, but one big positive came out of it: we got a break in the 50 Shades of Grey mania. The title was barely on the radar for all of 2014. News about the film trickled out the way it does for any highly anticipated book-to-movie adaptation, and the trailer came out, but between those brief flashes, blessed radio silence. There were no thinkpieces on women’s sexuality and how positive the books were for it. Nobody made jokes about spankings on morning news shows. Everything was generally calm, and 50 Shades of Grey barely flitted through the consciousness of anyone trying to avoid it.

Brace yourselves. Bullshit is coming.

The 50 Shades of Grey movie is on its way to ruin your Valentine’s Day like a bad breakup on February 13th. The movie premiers on that most romantic of the commercially-driven gift-giving holidays, which makes sense because it is undisputedly the greatest love story of all time. Who doesn’t swoon when they imagine being trapped into a relationship that stresses them out, chained to a person they’re terrified of but unable to leave because that person has enough money to track them down no matter where they may flee?

Dreamy. Sigh.

In addition to all the magazine and gossip page articles we’re going to be subjected to–”Dakota and Jamie! Such Sexy! Much Hot!”–we’re also going to get shat upon by the commercial machine that is movie tie-in merchandising.

There’s already been a dustup about Target’s rather iffy placement of sexy 50 Shades merchandise, and one big giant crybaby started a change.org petition back in December to urge the superstore to stop selling copies of the novel, lest men who feel oppressed by the impossibly high sexual standards set forth in the book become, I shit you not, violent when they can’t satisfy a woman (but don’t, you know, stop selling the book because it promotes violence toward women in a more blatant and totally obvious sense. Do it to protect the male fee-fees). But the first actual movie tie-in product to come to my attention ahead of the landslide of cheap plastic shit that will no doubt flood shelves anew this February is OPI’s underwhelming nail color collection.

Finally, nail polish that goes well with my dislocated shoulder.

OPI is a brand known for splashy gimmick collections based on movies and celebrities. They’re basically the MAC of the nail polish world in that regard. If you’ve got a movie coming out and your target demographic is females ages 18 – 50, OPI is going to be a part of your merchandising. As you would expect, the 50 Shades of Grey line has four gray polishes, a red that they didn’t even bother to name Red Room of Pain, and some kind of multi-dimensional creme/gray frost. If you go to the OPI site, you’ll find the collection, with names like, “Shine For Me,” and “Embrace the Gray,” but strangely no, “It Takes Two to Charlie Tango” which I personally thought was a shoe-in considering the fucking awful puns OPI’s marketing department comes up with already.

Since the polish names don’t match, I took the liberty of fixing them:

 

If OPI’s dilution of their own brand with endless repeats of the same colors repackaged every time Gwen Stefani wants to sneeze out a collection hadn’t already driven me far, far from their products already, I would stop buying them. If you’re looking to vote with your wallet out of the mean satisfaction you’ll get (because let’s be honest, there are more idiots in this world than not, and they’d snap up an actual, human turd if someone put it in a box that had Jamie Dornan on it, so boycotting won’t do a damn thing), then I suggest you do the same.

In the meantime, if you find a 50 Shades of Grey movie tie-in product (not the book-related tie-ins that are already out there, like the godawful swill they’re selling as wine or the laughably shoddy sex toys they’re slinging), let me know. I’d like to make fun of it.

Inspired by a Melody: “I Messed Up,” Ed Sheeran (SPOILERS THROUGH THE EX)

Bronwyn Green • Jenny Trout • Kellie St. James • Gwendolyn Cease • Jessica De La Rosa

Jessica Jarman • Kris Norris • Kayleigh Jones

A couple times a month (but I’ll probably miss a few), I’ll be posting fiction inspired by either a song or a picture. I’m doing this in conjunction with some of the Wednesday Bloggers listed above (if their names are links, they’re participating in the prompt). I thought I would kick it off with something from the Bossverse. This isn’t necessarily anything that will show up in anything published. And it hasn’t been edited or beta read, either, so this gives you a chance to see what my writing looks like before my wizard friends throw their editing magic at it.

This month’s song was Ed Sheeran’s “I Messed Up.” Which I hadn’t heard before, and I don’t really “get” it, so I just went with the mopey vibe of thing.

BEFORE YOU GO FURTHER: spoilers through The  Ex!

Gena packed a bag on a Friday night.

“I don’t know why you think you have to be here for this,” she snapped, the irritation as plain in her voice as in her body. Her back was rigid, her arms trembling as she rolled her clothes.

I took a swallow of my scotch and soda, far to drunk to be in the situation I was in, watching my wife walk out. “Well, I don’t know why you think you have to do this.”

She shook her head, bending over her suitcase. Our suitcase, from the luggage set we’d gotten as a wedding present. We’d always meant to travel. Before we have kids, we’d say. But we’d never gotten around to it, somehow, and that “before” had gotten too far away.

“I’m not doing anything.” Her low ponytail fell over her shoulder, a slash of bright copper against her unusually drab clothing. My Gena didn’t dress in beaten up olive denim and tan corduroy. The Gena I’d seen in photos from before we’d met looked more like the woman standing in front of me in our dark bedroom. The full moon and city glow flooded through the long, angled windows we’d put in when she’d told me how much she loved waking up to see the sky.

“You’re the one leaving. Because–”

“Because I don’t want to lose my life to hormone injections and egg harvesting?” she threw down some article of clothing or another. “We tried.”

“Oh, we didn’t try!” There it was, the anger that had driven us to this point. Locked us in a fucking car boot and driven us out to the desert. We were going to dig a grave for our shared history and lay down in it and die. “You gave it a year!”

“A year, Ian!” she shouted at me. We’d had this fight so often in the past two months, it didn’t seem like we could wring anymore resentment out of it. But Gena’s voice dripped with it. “Do you think I’m not disappointed?”

“I think you’re very disappointed. I think you were waiting it out–”

“That’s not fair!”

“No it’s not!” And there was the shouting. Right on time. “You said you wanted a child, you wanted a family. But you were waiting me out, until I would say, ‘oh, too much time has gone by, I’m getting too old.’ It’s all bullshit and you know it. You never wanted a baby–”

“I wanted a baby! When I was thirty-two. When I was thirty-five. I’m about to be forty, Ian! You’re fifty-two.” She turned back to her packing. “We had plans. All of these… amazing adventures we were going to go off and do. You’re not going to have time to do that in twenty years.”

“We don’t have time now. We have our lives here. I have a fucking job! I can’t just run off to ‘find myself’ or whatever spiritual bullshit you’ve latched onto this week–”

“Oh, but you would have time to parent? You can’t take a couple weeks off a year to go somewhere that’s not Brooklyn?” She shook her hand at the window, damning everything beyond. “You don’t have time for your wife, how would you have time for your kid?”

“I’d make time!”

“But not for me!”

We stood staring at each other in the same silence that had fallen between us in this argument before. Rehearsal hadn’t made it easier to stand there and realizing that we loved ourselves and our own plans more than we loved each other. And no matter how much we’d practiced ignoring the differences in our wants and needs, we’d never perfected the art of totally banishing them.

Gena crossed her arms over her middle, not in a gesture of exasperation but as a donning of armor. In the past I would have gone to her, to comfort the woman I loved. She wasn’t that woman anymore. “I don’t want this to be any uglier than it already is, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, though both of us knew it was only bound to get uglier. Some part of me believed that this could all be done cooperatively, despite the fact that our stubbornness was driving us apart.

I sat on the edge of our bed–or my bed, as of six days ago–and rested my elbows on my knees. I rubbed my forehead, far too exhausted to be anything other than practical. “I’ll call my lawyer in the morning. Are we going to court for this?”

“No. I don’t want anything.” The resignation in her voice matched mine. “Well, I do want some things. But let’s try to do this without a legal hassle. Divorce is a big enough hassle as it is.”

“Well, I’m not the expert in the room on that one.” It was a cheap shot, and it felt good. I took another swallow of my drink.

“I’ve only got one life, Ian,” she said with quiet reproach. “So do you. You can have a life with me, or you can have a life with your hypothetical children.”

“I would have rather had both. But that wasn’t ever an option, was it?” I willed my voice to stay even. Shouting hadn’t solved anything so far.

It took her a long time to answer, and that confirmed what I already knew before she said it. “No. If I’m being honest… it never was.”

The finality of the moment was almost a relief; it was a point of no return. There was no question, now, that things could ever be fixed. We’d entered into the relationship under false pretenses, and now we would part bitter and unhappy. Knowing the course didn’t make the heading any easier.

Two weeks ago, all I’d wanted in life was to be with her. Now, I couldn’t get away from her fast enough. I pushed up from the bed and walked away, unable to hold back my bitterness as I said, “Oh. Now we’re telling the truth.”

“I’ll be at Cindy’s,” she called after me as I took the stairs down from the loft.

I knew I should care where she went. But at the moment, I just wanted her gone.

Merlin Club S04E11: “A Hunter’s Heart,” or, “The One I Forgot To Give An Alternate Title To”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode eleven: Gwen gets kidnapped by a dude who’s pretty hot, but in league with Morgana. Arthur gets engaged to a princess who’s pretty hot, but he’s just not into her. Morgana tries yet another plan that goes absolutely no where, and Agravaine is still the worst liar in Camelot. Also, Gwen gets turned into a deer, and Arthur’s new lady shoots her.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: Agravaine has long, long out lasted his welcome. Morgana asks him more than once if he’s disappointed her. That’s how much he has fucked up. Yet she still keeps him around, which makes her seem stupid. Meanwhile, he’s the worst liar in all of mythology, and Arthur doesn’t suspect him of a thing. Which makes Arthur seem stupid. Agravaine should have been in three or four episodes, tops. To keep him around any longer makes both the heroes and the villains look stupid, so what’s the point of him being there at all?

The thing I loved most about this episode: The way Merlin acts like his OTP is being broken up by canon. Through the entire episode he’s acting the way I acted when J.K. Rowling said Hermione should have married Harry instead of Ron.

And I love that Gwen is a total bad ass in this one. Yes, she’s sad still over losing Arthur, but she doesn’t waste away like a wilting violet. She treks through the wilderness to save a kingdom she’s been banished from, just because she’s that loyal. This episode made me fall in love with Gwen, when before I had just been in love with Gwen as a part of the Gwen/Arthur pairing.

Also, Arthur had a new love interest, and she wasn’t a bitch. She wasn’t terrible or evil and Arthur could have been happy with her, eventually. She could have absolutely been Gwen’s replacement, but she wasn’t crafted for the audience to hate her. I can’t think of any time I’ve ever seen that happen on a show.

The thing I hated most about this episode: Why is Morgana so dumb, all the time? She started the series out super smart. It was easy to root for her. Now, we’re supposed to fear her, but it’s really difficult when she keeps doing so many stupid things. She has to find Gwen so that Arthur doesn’t find out the plan to attack Camelot through the siege tunnels. So… what was the point of turning her into a deer? Rather than go for the dramatic, maybe try just killing her? It’s not that I want Gwen to die or Morgana to win. I just want Morgana’s scary evil to make sense.

Something I never noticed before: Wait, they’re celebrating Ostara? What about druids and boo the old religion?

Favorite Costume: Gwen’s net midriff dress and especially the sheer veil.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: None for this episode

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? Princess Mithian’s coat:

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? I’m sure she spent every moment of Merlin’s angst over Arthur’s engagement mentally writing fanon about how Merlin was really upset that Arthur was marrying anybody at all…

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

 

Merlin Club S04E11: “A Hunter’s Heart,” or, “

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode eleven: Gwen gets kidnapped by a dude who’s pretty hot, but in league with Morgana. Arthur gets engaged to a princess who’s pretty hot, but he’s just not into her. Morgana tries yet another plan that goes absolutely no where, and Agravaine is still the worst liar in Camelot. Also, Gwen gets turned into a deer, and Arthur’s new lady shoots her.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: Agravaine has long, long out lasted his welcome. Morgana asks him more than once if he’s disappointed her. That’s how much he has fucked up. Yet she still keeps him around, which makes her seem stupid. Meanwhile, he’s the worst liar in all of mythology, and Arthur doesn’t suspect him of a thing. Which makes Arthur seem stupid. Agravaine should have been in three or four episodes, tops. To keep him around any longer makes both the heroes and the villains look stupid, so what’s the point of him being there at all?

The thing I loved most about this episode: The way Merlin acts like his OTP is being broken up by canon. Through the entire episode he’s acting the way I acted when J.K. Rowling said Hermione should have married Harry instead of Ron.

And I love that Gwen is a total bad ass in this one. Yes, she’s sad still over losing Arthur, but she doesn’t waste away like a wilting violet. She treks through the wilderness to save a kingdom she’s been banished from, just because she’s that loyal. This episode made me fall in love with Gwen, when before I had just been in love with Gwen as a part of the Gwen/Arthur pairing.

Also, Arthur had a new love interest, and she wasn’t a bitch. She wasn’t terrible or evil and Arthur could have been happy with her, eventually. She could have absolutely been Gwen’s replacement, but she wasn’t crafted for the audience to hate her. I can’t think of any time I’ve ever seen that happen on a show.

The thing I hated most about this episode: Why is Morgana so dumb, all the time? She started the series out super smart. It was easy to root for her. Now, we’re supposed to fear her, but it’s really difficult when she keeps doing so many stupid things. She has to find Gwen so that Arthur doesn’t find out the plan to attack Camelot through the siege tunnels. So… what was the point of turning her into a deer? Rather than go for the dramatic, maybe try just killing her? It’s not that I want Gwen to die or Morgana to win. I just want Morgana’s scary evil to make sense.

Something I never noticed before: Wait, they’re celebrating Ostara? What about druids and boo the old religion?

Favorite Costume: Gwen’s net midriff dress and especially the sheer veil.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: None for this episode

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? Princess Mithian’s coat:

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? I’m sure she spent every moment of Merlin’s angst over Arthur’s engagement mentally writing fanon about how Merlin was really upset that Arthur was marrying anybody at all…

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

 

State of The Trout: “Stuff that’s happening” edition

Hey there Troutlanders. OMG THAT IS WHAT WE SHOULD CALL OURSELVES IF WE ARE IN TROUT NATION BUT ALSO WE LOVE OUTLANDER.

Ahem. Speaking of Outlander, I received this awesome box just before Christmas:

I won it through a twitter contest and I’m fucking stoked about it, but I don’t think there’s been a State of The Trout post where I could share it. There is a kilt in the box. I’m going to see Mr. Jen in a kilt. ROWR.

Chapter eleven of The Afflicted is up. You can read it here.

Speaking of favorite fandoms: This is my very new tattoo, moments after the artist (Katrina Kateri, Old Anchor Tattoos, Portage, MI) finished it:

D-Rock took that picture. She said, “Dude, you look so tough now.” I think the puppy on my stripey sweater agrees. Doctor Who tattoos make you look hard as fuck.

Want another free read? My New Adult novella, Choosing You, is free on Amazon until January 17th. This story was originally included in the If Ever I Would Leave You anthology from last year.

My next book release, you ask? I’ll have a contemporary romance novella, Bad Boy, Good Man, in the Bad Boy Next Door digital box set. More details to come.

More writing in general? As part of a blogging thing, expect to see occasional posts inspired by songs and photographs. The Wednesday Bloggers came up with the idea. I’ll basically be writing fanfic of my own stuff, so you’ll be getting micro-stories about characters that are already out there.

I was quoted in the NYT! In an absolute first for me, I was quoted in a major national publication. The article is about Meghan Trainor, and the author references my objections to the cultural appropriation in the video.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print!

 

Wednesday Blogging: My Anti-Bucket List

I haven’t Wednesday blogged in a long time, because I’m lazy. But also, because I have all sorts of other stuff I like to do on the blog (like update links pages…which never, ever happens. Not ever), a lot of which I’d like to do on the weekly. When I found out this week that  the topic is “your anti-bucket list” I was like, “Bitch, what is an anti-bucket list?” And Bronwyn Green was like, “It’s a list of things you don’t want to do before you die.” I immediately thought of about five thousand really grim things, like “experience surgical awareness,” “get cancer,” or “have one of my kids die.” And then Bronwyn was like, “Cool your jets, it doesn’t have to be like that.” And I thought of some much better ones that aren’t, you know. Common fears.

So here is my anti-bucket list:

Meet Anthony Stewart Head. So many well-intentioned Trout Nation citizens have tried to convince me to go to a con and meet him, because it would be funny and make a good blog post. They’ve tried to entice me with details like, “He smells so good,” and “He’ll totally hug you,” and “He’s really nice, honest.” I’m sure he’s super duper nice, and while my knees go positively weak at the thought of knowing what he smells like… dudes. Come on. I’ve written four books of graphic sex with a main character who looks and sounds nearly exactly like him in my head. There is no way I could be comfortable being in the same building as this person, let alone actually speaking to and having a picture taken with him.

Have to use pepper spray on anyone. I mean, I don’t carry pepper spray, but I’m really afraid that sometime, somehow, I’m going to have to pepper spray someone. I can see this going down one of two ways:

1. I am in a horribly scary, life threatening situation in which the use of force is necessary to prevent injury and/or death to my person.

2. I am not in a scary, life threatening situation in which the use of force is necessary to prevent injury and/or death to my person, and I have just maced somebody on accident.

Neither of these scenarios appeal to me, so I’m just gonna make like Bartleby in this situation and prefer the fuck not to.

Go into space. I realize that I’m already in space, flying around on a little hunk of rock in an infinite, mysterious void. I don’t want to leave this little hunk of rock, because fuck that. Space is scary as hell. If The Doctor showed up in fifteen minutes and was like, “You wanna?” I would be like, “yeah!” But he’s the only person I would trust to take me into space. And I don’t care how brave Katrina was, I’m not blowing myself out an airlock for him. Space is out there. But back to my original point: space is freaky and I don’t like knowing it’s out there, so I’m not going to go there.

Swim next to a whale. What the fuck is wrong with you people? Do you not see how big that thing is? Why would you? Why?

Age gracefully. Because that’s just bullshit. It’s bullshit to expect women to not take advantage of the miracles medical science has provided us, while at the same time torturing us in a culture that prizes our beauty and youth above all. And then we deride women when they try to fulfill that cultural expectation through surgical means. That’s bullshit. I speculate that by the time I am seventy, I will look something like this:

You know why? Because with all the tattoos I’ve put on my body, and all the holes I’ve punched in it (though I don’t wear my piercings anymore), I cannot be morally above becoming a bitchy trampoline in my golden years.

Have any kind of dangerous, life changing adventure. You know what? If a bunch of dwarves start showing up at your house? You don’t have to let them in. You can sit in your safe, cozy hole, smoke your pipe leaf, and put your hairy little feet up. Which is exactly what I would do. Fuck you Bilbo. This ain’t amateur hour.

Tell me what you’d put on your anti-bucket list, and check out the lists from these Wednesday bloggers:

Bronwyn Green • Jessica Jarman • Kris Norris • Gwendolyn Cease • Kellie St. James

One of these things is not like the other. TW: Rape

I’m not going to make this long, and I’m not going to call out anybody or name names or anything. I just feel like this needs to be said, and I don’t want to add fuel to the fire that resulted in me needing to make this post, and I want it to come across as sensitively as it possibly can. I keep feeling like it reads like a scolding, and it’s not meant to be one. It’s just bursting to get out.

In 2001, I went on a date with someone. Somebody I thought I could trust, because he was friends with someone I trusted. He was really nice and sweet and we’d talked on the phone a couple of times, and we decided to meet for drinks. We hit it off, and at some point, I got up to go to the bathroom and I left my drink on the table.

I probably don’t need to go into anything further than that. You get it. And it wasn’t even the first time a guy did this to me. Almost every woman I know has had this happen to her. If this has happened to you, I don’t care if you’re my worst fucking enemy in the world, I don’t care if you hit my dog with your car, if you lived through this, I’m so sorry that it happened to you. But I read something in which someone described a situation they were currently in, an intensely emotional and fraught situation, as feeling similar to when they were raped. And while I don’t want to police the feelings of other people on the subject of their own experiences, it struck me as an inappropriate comparison. But it happens all the time. I know I’ve done it in the past, before I realized that it’s impossible to separate what happened to me from what’s happened to lots of other people. Before I realized that survivors can victimize each other, no matter their intentions.

This is one of those rare occasions where I debated whether or not to post, because I’m so afraid of what will be said to/about me about something this personal. But no one seems to be talking about this. Even people I admire, whom I know must have noticed. And I know for a fact that there are other people who were similarly triggered by this comparison. So I had to get it off my chest.

There’s a potential for emotional injury here, so that’s why the comments are closed. This isn’t for gossip, it isn’t for discussion. It’s just something I had to say. No matter who you are, no matter what your experience was, no matter what you’re feeling, or how similar it feels to your experience, remember that you’re not the only person who has had that thing happen to them. When you compare something to rape, you’re comparing it to someone else’s rape, too, minimizing and trivializing their trauma. And if you accidentally compare someone to your rapist, you might be comparing them to their rapist. The psychological harm that causes a person… I can’t even imagine how I would feel if someone did that to me.

So, that’s it. Just please don’t compare stuff that isn’t rape to rape. And I’m sorry that it happened to you, too.

Merlin Club S04E10, “A Herald of The New Age” or “I feel like I’ve seen dripping children before.”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode ten: Because the knights of Camelot all have absolutely no ability to learn or grow from their experiences, Elian drinks from a druid well and gets haunted. The ghost of a drowned little boy follows Elian around, demanding vengeance against the king, so Elian tries to kill Arthur and gets thrown into the dungeon. Merlin helps Elian escape, but Elian is all full of ghost vengeance, so he’s basically got a one-track mind. Turns out, the ghost boy doesn’t want vengeance on Uther, the king who killed all those druids, but on Arthur, the king who killed him specifically. Arthur apologizes to the spirit, and the spirit is basically, “We’re all good,” and the spell is broken and Elian goes back to normal.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: We haven’t spent enough time with Elian for him to become a full-fledged character we can care about. With his sister in exile, this would have been the perfect episode to get to know him better, to explore his feelings toward Arthur about his sister’s banishment. Why does Elian remain so loyal to Arthur, even after he’s sent Gwen away? All of this is mentioned in the episode, but we still don’t get a why. We just get, “No, he’s still totally loyal to Arthur, don’t worry about it,” episode that just makes Elian look like a dick, because at the end, Arthur and Elian never talk about Elian’s feelings over his sister’s banishment. That could have been an amazing moment, but NOPE.

The thing I loved most about this episode: That we did get to see true remorse from Arthur about his banishment of Gwen, even if he didn’t really do much about it.

The thing I hated most about this episode: It’s a total rehash of the episode where Uther is confronted by the spirits of the people he killed, right down to the ghost-kid atonement. I also hated how out of character Gaius was. He was so snappy at Gwain–”If I wanted your medical opinion, Gwain, I would ask for it.” What the hell, dude. And then he’s like, the king doesn’t need to know about every accident in Camelot, but when Uther was king he used to spill like a sack of beans any time anything happened, whether it was something he should have told the king or not.

Something I never noticed before: Everyone is super quick to believe that Elian is cursed, but no one ever questioned whether or not Gwen could have been under a spell in the last episode. And at one point, Gwaine gives Merlin salt to put around his bed to ward off evil spirits… isn’t that, you know… witchcraft and superstition, stuff that’s illegal in Camelot?

Also, when Arthur tearfully confesses to Merlin that he didn’t want to lead the raid on the druid camp, that directly contradicts the characterization we saw at the beginning of the series. First season Arthur would have thought absolutely nothing of murdering druids. It’s only as he grew into himself and pulled away from his father that he started questioning his orders.

Favorite Costume: I don’t have one for this episode. It’s all basically the knights, and as funny as it is, I’m not going to pick Percy’s sleeveless chainmail as my favorite costume. Because it’s ridiculous.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: Nothing for this episode.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? When I think “Bronwyn Green,” I almost immediately think, “Haunted druid well.”

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? I’m sure she routinely imagines what happens after the end of the episode, when Arthur catches Merlin for that “hug.”

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

 

The Joelist Book of The Dead, pt. 2, “The River of Dreams”

In case you missed part one of this series, you can find it here. This post will make more sense in context. As with “Lullaby (Goodnight, My Angel),” I have not sought out other analysis from either Billy Joel or other sources.

Apparently, a common theme in dreams (human dreams, at least) is trying to cross a bridge or a river. I have this dream a lot; sometimes I can cross the bridge, other times my car blows off into the river (one of my worst fears and the reason I dread crossing the Mackinac bridge every year). On the occasions I’ve made it across the dream-bridge, I’m usually then involved in some kind of incidental meeting with a dead relative. I was shocked when I relayed this dream to Bronwyn Green and she told me she’d had similar dreams, and that pretty much everyone has them, like the naked at school dream or those dreams where all your teeth fall out.

Can we talk about that for a minute? Because I always have way more teeth in those dreams than normal people should have in their mouths.

Anyway, when listening to Billy Joel’s “The River of Dreams” one day, I began to make some connections between my river dreams, the river dream he describes and, well, everyone’s river dreams. And as the song comes directly after “Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel),” a song I previously analyzed to be a message about immortality and a connection between the world of the living and the dead, I began to think of “The River of Dreams” as a universal interpretation of life, death, and the collective human consciousness.

Let’s consider the lyrics:

In the middle of the night

I go walking in my sleep

From the mountains of faith

To a river so deep

I must be looking for something

Something sacred I lost

But the river is wide

And it’s too hard to cross

Here we have a poetic description of a dream, a journey from “faith,” a belief so strong as to become reality to the faithful; here I’m interpreting it to mean knowledge of the waking world, and trust in what our conscious mind shows us. Moving from the conscious to the subconscious, the traveler begins a journey for knowledge of something that escapes upon waking. The source of the knowledge, however, is made unobtainable by an obstacle, i.e., the river.

And even though I know the river is wide

I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore

And try to cross to the opposite side

So I can finally find out what I’ve been looking for

This is a reoccurring dream, and so familiar that the dreamer has begun to consciously see a pattern. They are aware that something lies beyond the river, and that to learn that knowledge they have to cross over.

In the middle of the night

I go walking in my sleep

Through the valley of fear

To a river so deep

And I’ve been searching for something

Taken out of my soul

Something I would never lose

Something somebody stole

In our waking thoughts, fear of our own mortality might prevent us from speculating on the nature of our souls, but in the subconscious world of our dreams, we are free to meditate upon it. The sense that something has been taken from the dreamer, something that they should be able to access, but can’t, is perhaps because of the manipulation our cultural beliefs have in forming our thoughts.

I don’t know why I go walking at night

But now I’m tired and I don’t want to walk anymore

I hope it doesn’t take the rest of my life

Until I find what it is that I’ve been looking for

When conscious, the dreamer is frustrated at the lack of easy answers, without realizing that it won’t just take the rest of their life, it will take the end of their life to understand their place in the collective conscious. More on that after the next verse:

In the middle of the night

I go walking in my sleep

Through the jungle of doubt

To a river so deep

I know I’m searching for something

Something so undefined

That it can only be seen

By the eyes of the blind

In the middle of the night

“The jungle of doubt,” here could mean doubting the existence of a life after death. Likewise, the “eyes of the blind” can be interpreted as the knowledge gained by the dead in the world beyond. “Blind” and “unseeing” have been used to describe the dead in literature and spirituality, especially in Christianity, where Jesus “opened the eyes” of Lazarus in his tomb. Hence my earlier assertion that only through death can we truly “cross the river.”

I’m not sure about a life after this

God knows I’ve never been a spiritual man

Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river

That runs to the promised land

Christian theology points to baptism of fire to refer to the trials and tests faced by Christ and his disciples. So, baptised by the tests of life, the dreamer once again tries to cross the river to gain entrance to the land beyond.

In the middle of the night

I go walking in my sleep

Through the desert of truth

To the river so deep

The “desert of truth” refers to absence of divine spiritual truth in our conscious lives.

We all end in the ocean

We all start in the streams

We’re all carried along

By the river of dreams

In the middle of the night

The final verse leaves us in ambiguity; is the “promised land” a conscious state that exists only in dreams, a world we access upon death (our permanent sleep)? If so, that means that the life of each soul is entwined in the “river of dreams,” that forms one collective human experience in some kind of universal subconscious.

From this song, I’ve formed the Joelist belief in an afterlife built around the familiar locations in recurring dreams. When we die, we cross the river of dreams, and enter into communion with the thoughts and minds of others. Until then, our subconscious self still tries to unite us with that collective consciousness, even though we can’t cross the river yet.

The next part of the Joelist Book of The Dead will be “2000 Years,” a song that details the evil and the divine in human nature, and the eventuality of fate.