stagmania

To your first point, the implication was pretty clear that Angel was acting and would have intervened before letting Spike kill Xander. He didn't end up having to because Spike realized what was going on before biting him. And as for the second: that moment was played entirely for humor. I don't think we're supposed to read anything all that deep into it. Xander was jealous and petty about Buffy's relationship with Angel. Angel sometimes being a jerk to him doesn't erase that. And I agree with SilverShadow that it would have been nice for the show to call him out on his sanctimonious behavior toward Buffy, especially once he got involved with Anya and the hypocrisy reached astounding levels.

It is kind of weird. Buffy was basically the "extra" after her first death, but she was definitely treated by everyone we saw as The Chosen One. I guess because Faith was so unreliable? But actually, thinking about this more, I always interpreted the Cruciamentum as a way of getting rid of "troublesome" slayers; if you had a difficult personality to deal with and wanted someone more malleable, just give her a particularly tough test that she'll probably fail. But when Buffy went through hers, the slayer line had already passed on from her; only Faith's death would get them a new slayer. So what was the point?

Wow, this is kind of blowing my mind. That makes the plot even more ludicrous; no way can Jax and Tara go from their wedding day to all this crazy shit and falling out of love/trust with each other in such a short timespan. That is not remotely plausible.

Agreed, I really like the ending, while also recognizing it has its problems. And good lord, I hated that cookie dough speech. It came across to me as blatant attempt to pander to both Bangel and Spuffy shippers, and I thought it was wholly unnecessary. Angel had been on his own show for 4 years at that point; I really had no desire to have that doomed romance dredged up one more time for the road.

I completely agree. I've been re-watching Season 1, which is not quite as solid, but the main selling point is that the characters seem like real people that it's possible to feel empathy for. No doubt, the seeds of what they would become are there, but no one is as over-the-top villainous or stupid as they have all become now in service of the plot. On the Tara issue, the show lost me with her after Season 4. I just don't buy that she would have stayed after Jax made it clear he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Even if Sutter wanted to keep her around so that she could die a bloody death to add to the tragedy of Jax's life, they could have at least had her make a real attempt to go before circumstances forced her back. That would have been more fair to the integrity of her character and spared us her poorly planned desperate schemes in Season 6.

Here is an interview with Liz Meriweather about what went wrong in Season 3 and how they hope to correct it, conducted by Alan Sepinwall. It's encouraging that she knows last season didn't really work, though disappointing that she's given up on figuring out how to write a couple (for now).

When I think about ranking episodes, I have to differentiate from the ones I think are "best" versus the ones I re-watch the most. The best list would look something like this: Hush The Body Once More with Feeling Becoming I and II Surprise/Innocence Restless The Prom Earshot Whereas the list of episodes I watch most often is more like: Once More with Feeling Doppelgangland Something Blue Tabula Rasa Halloween Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered I guess I tend to go for the comedic/lighter episodes when I just want a one-off. And given that Season 5 is one of my favorite seasons, I really don't re-watch it much. I love the narrative arc of that season, but it doesn't really have many standout episodes (excepting The Body).

Oh, I completely agree, and understand why Buffy would want to try to live a normal life. What I don't get is why the other characters, and apparently the people who wrote the show, also thought this was a realistic expectation.

You bring up an interesting point about how the show sometimes framed the Slayer gig: like it was something Buffy could do on the side. This whole idea that she should still pursue all the trappings of a normal life-education, career, having a family someday. I always thought that was so odd; obviously those things were not really attainable for her within the framework of being The Chosen One. This really came to a head in Season 6, when she came back to life and had a mountain of debt dumped on her with the expectation that she needed to get a job and deal with it herself. It always made me wonder: how is the Council not paying her bills or giving her a salary? What is even the point of that institution if not to facilitate things so that the Slayer could perform her duties unimpeded by mundane concerns?

"So if you don't buy that she's at sea generally, and I don't, you don't buy that she'd fixate on a B-minus like Parker "Gayoda" Abrams. " I think the idea was supposed to be that she was at sea because of Angel leaving. Thus, Parker. Once Angel left she became very obsessed with the idea of being a "normal" girl with a "normal" relationship, perhaps so she would feel like Angel leaving had a purpose. This is why she was so quick to jump into something with the first dude who smarmed at her.

With Spike, I think it was at least partially a case of the writers wanting to keep around a character they loved, and not fully thinking through the implications of the plot twists they came up with to make that happen. I'm not sure they ever considered why exactly he was capable of emotions like love when Angelus wasn't, or why that would inspire him to try to change when he could have easily gone on being completely evil. I do think he was intended to be different from other vampires (which is not to say "good"), and was always written as such. Yes, he didn't really care about Buffy at that time, which is not surprising. My point in mentioning it was not to make it out as some altruistic act, but to point out that it was highly unusual for a vampire to think of making a deal/working with the Slayer at all-just another way that the writers made him a bit different from the rest.

The writers made a distinction between Spike and other vampires from his very first episode-namely, that the way he and Drusilla loved each other was unusual for vampires. They had The Judge tell him that he reeked of humanity. They had him strike up a deal with a slayer to save the world, even if for selfish reasons. All of this in Season 2, when Bangel was still reigning supreme, and there were no plans to make him a love interest for Buffy. His uniqueness was baked in to his original characterization. Spuffy fan or not, it's a bit disingenuous to claim they only set him apart later for the sake of propping up that relationship.

Buffy did, in fact, go out seeking demons to kill-that's what patrolling was, and she was shown doing it in nearly every episode. She often would camp out at the graves of the recently deceased and stake them as soon as they rose, before they ever had a chance to harm anyone. Or he did it because he was so appalled by his actions that he wanted to change. That whole story is completely open to interpretation, as we didn't really get to see Spike's perspective so that they could preserve the surprise. Spike did not try to get back together with Buffy after returning with his soul; the idea that he did it solely to "get" her never made much sense to me.

Multiple seasons of slow character growth was an awful lot of work to put in if the writers were simply pandering to shippers. Spike was capable of change, we saw him change over the years of the show as he reacted and adapted to each new set of circumstances. As for Buffy and Spike's brief period of friendship, I agree that the only reason she allowed it was because she didn't feel like herself and wasn't comfortable with her other friends. That doesn't mean it wasn't real, and I'll always be disappointed at the direction the writers decided to take that relationship.

The Anya point is interesting, as I never got the impression that she cared about redemption, or felt she was in need of it. She never expressed any regret for her actions as a vengeance demon until after getting her powers back in Season 7, and in fact often made fond recollections of her misdeeds, which Xander and the others would just brush off. Another thing the show failed to fully explore, choosing instead to play it for comedy. As to the Scooby gang being made to look like awful hypocrites-they are. There are so many canonical examples of this, from judging each others' love lives, to who they think should be killed versus who can be redeemed, who deserves to be treated with dignity versus who they can kick around and use when necessary, etc. It's part of their dynamic, and doesn't make them bad people, but realistic characters.

True, and pretty much everything around the souled vs. unsouled vampire debate was handled terribly by the show. You can't present clear exceptions/complexities to the rule (Spike choosing to do good and seek out his own soul versus Angel having to be cursed with his, Angel and Angelus being viewed as separate entities while Spike is always just Spike, etc) and then never have the characters acknowledge or explore the implications. Also, I reject the notion that Spike's transformation was "easy", as it played out over years and plenty of struggle. I also don't believe that had he and Buffy had a nicer relationship, that would suddenly absolve him of all his past sins, just like I didn't believe that of Angel. Buffy dated Angel previously, who was also a serial killer. She justified that by telling herself that Angel and Angelus weren't the same (a notion that was later challenged on Angel's own show). I view her getting involved with a Spike who is actively trying to be good as a rejection of that simplistic souled/unsouled dichotomy, not as an indication that serial killers are great.

I do understand, of course, that plenty of gay people have straight relationships early on before realizing they are unfulfilled-I just didn't see any indication in the story that this was Willow's situation. She was written as being quite happy with Oz, and attracted to him sexually. So ignoring that part of her history after Season 4 didn't make a lot of sense to me. Your point about cultural context of the times is an important one. In that time, it may have been more important to have an unequivocally gay lead character. But looking at it through a more updated lens, with bisexuality erasure a real problem in current media representations, it is a bit disappointing to look back and see a missed opportunity to demonstrate a more complex depiction of human sexuality.

Here's my unpopular opinion: I was totally on board with the idea of Spike/Buffy in Season 5 and early Season 6, until they ruined it by turning it into the super dark self-loathing abusive relationship parade. A passage from an essay by Jennifer Crusie that illustrates my take on where I thought their relationship was going in the first part of Season 6: "In what was evidently one of the great botched metaphors in the history of storytelling, Buffy and Spike consummate their relationship and demolish a derelict mansion in their throes. Houses are a common symbol for people in stories (think of Roderick Usher’s mansion in “The Fall of the House of Usher” or Emily’s decaying home in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”) and this one seems to clearly represent Buffy’s once rich but now derelict past life. She has died in one life and been resurrected into a new one, but she’s clinging to the past, living in the decaying shell of her former existence, an old life must be rejected before she can live fully in the new world. When she embraces Spike, she embraces the dark side of her destiny, an adult rejection of the simplistic good/evil universe of her childhood, freeing herself to move into the future and defeat the worst enemy of all, the First Evil. Their consummation takes them to their deepest levels, both symbolically and literally as they fall into the basement, and leaves Buffy standing in a shaft of light in the morning, reborn. As metaphoric scenes go, it’s one of the most powerful in the history of the series. Except that’s evidently not what the writers had in mind." I'm not saying they were destined to be or that their relationship would ever have been totally healthy, but I saw potential there for both of them to grow as characters. That potential was wasted when the writers decided to suddenly turn it into a mutually abusive situation (remember that they had a friendly relationship in Season 6 prior to bringing the house down) culminating in Spike's attempt to rape Buffy, a decision I will never understand.

Every time I watch The Prom, I tear up as soon as Wild Horses starts. Perfect music choice and a great way to end the Buffy/Angel relationship (would that they had actually let it die there instead of constantly teasing the possibility of its return). Speaking of relationships, watching earlier seasons with Willow and Oz always brings up some feelings of dissonance re: how they chose to present Willow's sexuality after Tara (constantly iterating that she sees herself as gay, with no mention of bisexuality). I still don't get that choice.

Looks like Jeffrey Dean Morgan is out, and Dermot Mulroney is in.

Season 4 ended when it was still winter. So I guess that means a time jump of a few months, which is typical. Not ideal this time, though, especially since they left Ian in such a bad state. Are they just going to gloss over his diagnosis, recovery and the work of getting him stabilized?

This is what has me extra convinced that this isn't a real death. The reactions were so tepid. Stefan was/kind of still is the male lead of this show; his death is going to have to be a lot more important and melodramatic than that. The show isn't even trying to make us buy into it.

Well, that might have had some sort of impact on me if death actually meant anything on this show. Even the preview for next week couldn't be bothered to pretend it would have repercussions for the story.

I think I'm at the point where I just hate all the characters. It's become apparent that the writers had no plan for what they would do after they got Elena together with Damon and shipped off the Originals, and the show has been declining steadily ever since. I can't imagine even the hardcore Damon/Elena 'shippers being happy with the way their relationship has played out and how much they've had to change Elena to make it work, and Stefan has just been wandering aimlessly through random plots since they don't know what to do with him when he's not a romantic lead. They've ruined Caroline and Tyler, and poor Jeremy, Bonnie and Matt have even less to do than in seasons past. Don't even get me started on Enzo and he and Damon's magical best friendship that sprung up out of nowhere. I just...hate what this show has become. I guess I'll try to finish the last couple episodes of this season, and then I'm out.

Judging by the complete lack of conversation here, I'm guessing everyone else thought this episode was terrible too. And not even in a fun way worth talking about. What happened to this show?!