Halting Hex

Huh. It appears I've been in this thread for years now without venting about how stupid I find that "the Mayor comes to the Library just to twirl his mustache and promote next episode" scene. (I've certainly inveighed against it elsewhere and elsewhen.) But what triggered me today was I just watched Cody and Sergio reacting to 3.05 and the first appearance of Hizzoner and I flashed ahead to this and how "invulnerable" doesn't mean the gang can't stuff him in the book cage until after Graduation (or chain him up, take him to Angel's [Angel hasn't been shot, yet] and let Fang go through some of his "greatest hits" on Wilkins) and thus foil the "Ascension", whatever that is. And then I realized that we pretty much had this exact same situation last year, in Innocence: So literally the climax of one of the key episodes last season was Joss playing with the language, and pointing out that immortality is no guarantee of victory. Just as the climax of the Season 1 finale was Joss pointing out that death is not necessarily final. ('Prophecies are tricky things. They don't tell you everything.") And yet here we have Joss forgetting all his previous illustrations of how you can't assume general results from a specific condition, and the gang being all "woe is me!" just because Wilkins doesn't die when Giles stabs him, specifically. (Which shouldn't even surprise Giles, since Angel presumably told the gang about how he saw Wilkins "catch" the letter opener with his palm in Enemies and heal instantly. The group should have changed their goal from "destroy the Mayor" to "disable and confine the Mayor" a freaking month or two ago.) Instead we get a Useless Villain Speech and a lot of long faces. Nope, sorry, Joss. Not buying it.

Given that we will shortly discover that Willow is being possessed by her Bezoar-spawn, I think it's pretty cool that the Bezoar is able to tap Willow's memories and understand how she would be concerned for Buffy's safety and thus fake concern so convincingly. As a Wiffy 'shipper, I do love the idea that their bond is so evident even the bad guys can pick up on it. Of course, if Buffy was thinking clearly, she'd know that something was up when Willow suggests that the egg was "a trap the Gorches planted for you"…since how would Lyle and Tector be able to get into Buffy's house, exactly? Just because Buffy invited Angel in, that doesn't mean that all of his undead "cousins" can drop by. (If it did, Darla wouldn't have needed Joyce to invite her in later in Angel…and since The Three apparently told the Master Buffy's address before Darla despatched them, Darla would also have heard that Buffy had invited Angel in, from their description of the pursuit.) So Buffy need no more fear that the Gorches "planted" little Eggbert's creepy surprise than she need fear Spike and Drusilla popping over because they need a third for gin rummy, IMO. Buffy really should have caught that, but her defenses are understandably wayyyy down when it comes to considering if Willow is betraying her. ***************************** All that said, if Buffy was alert enough to look towards the door and lower her voice because she feared awakening Joyce, she really should have taken the time after the phone call (be it the indicated 11 minutes or less) to do more than put the clock back on her night table. Quickly undressing and hopping into bed would have served her quite well, it seems. **************************** Reactor Georgia initially wondered if the egg (when it was fondling sleeping Buffy's face) might be one of the leftover egg sacs from Teacher's Pet, which IMO isn't completely out of left field as a hypothesis. Indeed, given that two episodes ago Xander mentioned "praying-mantis Lady" and that last episode one of his theories for Ted not being human was "a giant bug", one might think the series had been preparing the ground for the return of the egg sacs. But nope. Just a cute and subtle mislead, it seems. Good work, show.

We can't talk specific politics here, which is probably all for the best, but almost six years later, I do feel that this sort of thinking has become even more widespread, which wouldn't seem to augur well. JMO.

Willow gets criticized for this, since what is Oz having a hairy back compared to Buffy needing to kill The Love of Her Life to save the entire world? But, aside from Angel much deserving his current location and aside from the general defense of Willow here (that she's saying their friendship is a two-way street, and if she's there for Buffy, then Buffy should be there for her), there's a specific comparison as well. From Surprise: Yes, Buffy had specific issues about taking her relationship to a new level, and Willow was her sounding board. Now Willow is trying to navigate the waters of an evolving relationship (and unlike Buffy, she doesn't have experience making the Tylers of the world crawl to beg forgiveness, or letting Owen [and, sort of, Xander] down gently) and she could really use Buffy being there as Willow was for Buffy. So those who are like "'I'm dating', big deal! Grow up, Willow!" can bite me. JMO.

And going to this right after finishing Season 2 makes me so damn nostalgic. And not only for the obvious "Joss-is-now-a-hack" reasons. (Amazingly, I've seen people make the argument that it's okay for Buffy to leave hundreds [maybe thousands] of innocents behind because only Stupid Lily and the 5 randoms were worth saving.) No, never mind my gripes about this stuff. I just miss my show. I had a random flashback to Buffy and Xander coming in on Giles practicing on asking his chair for a date in Some Assembly Required, and it all felt so different. Perhaps part of my reaction is how Buffy is completely separated from her alleged friends, the entire episode. Buffy never called them all summer (even though she apparently has a phone in that apartment, since she tells Stupid Anne that she'll call her to check in on her), and she never references them at all. I know that Joe excused that silly and flatulent Obnoxiously Long Tracking Shot by saying it sets up the hard cut to Buffy alone in her apartment, but couldn't we do that a better way? Say we start the season with a happy first day at school, with Willow being all perky and thanking Buffy for helping her through physical therapy and stuff (and Xander and Cordelia being snarky and Giles and Jenny waving cheerfully) and they're all talking and saying they're excited for senior year and we'll face it together…and then we do the hard cut. Sure, it's a bit reminiscent of Buffy's dream in Act 2 of When She Was Bad, but to quote Oz, "there's a reason it's a classic". But no, even Buffy's dream sequence is All About Forehead. Annoying. (Maybe I just miss the 16mm film stock? Could be. Also, Cody and Sergio are going to be pissed when they realize that Go Fish was the last "In every generation, there is a Slayer" intro they're ever going to get. Too bad, guys.)

Just watched Cody and Sergio's video on the two-parter and when they asked what their viewers thought, one thing leapt to my mind: I mean, he's clearly there to shoehorn in exposition, and then he doesn't even say anything of note, hardly. In part 1, he tells Angel to clean himself up if he wants to get some sweet loving from that 14-year-old Slayer, and in part 2, it's "one blow will send them both to Hell". Nothing either Angel or Buffy couldn't have figured out on their own. And since that "immortal demon sent down to balance good and evil" still stinks out of being pulled out of Joss's ass, my new theory is that Whistler is actually lying (as demons do) and Buffy really could have just cut Angel's palm and thrown his blood in the portal to shut Acathla down (as generations of Bangel 'shippers have whined about since 1998). It's quite possible that Forehead got screwed. (Or at least so my Whistler-hate is telling me.) Granted, Angel going to Hell is still nothing to cry about, IMO. (My tears for Buffy's heartbreak aside.) So…thanks, you lying demon, I guess. (Blech.)

Actually, it was probably the following Monday. Class was cancelled for however many days. Jenny was buried on, say, Saturday, and then Snyder put Willow in charge. But still. The next time they had class, anyhow. Crap. I just imagined Willow sitting in class, trying not to be resentful that Jenny showed up, and yet not even really able to focus. I hope Jenny spoke to her afterwards, told her how grateful she was that Willow was ready to step in for her. And I hope Willow didn't feel any conflicting emotions as she spoke to her favorite teacher for (what she had no idea was going to be) the last time. Anyhow… Holy shit. (Or, as Oz would say, "Huh".) I always thought that Buffy's dream of Angel in the Sunlight in Innocence was just Buffy's subconscious putting the pieces together, her realizing that Jenny acted suspicious around Angel, from smoothly trying to get him on a slow boat to Nepal in Surprise, to her showing up conveniently in the Hallway Confrontation, as Willow just pointed out. Her "Spidey-Sense" working, even when she's asleep and, er, dreaming about Angel-boinkage. But…Buffy also gets prophetic dreams. Was that dream of an unknown grave and Jenny standing right by it her foreseeing that Angel would be putting Jenny in a grave, less than a month down the road? The counter-argument is that Buffy's Slayer prophecy dreams were usually about something more consequential than Angel helping Giles get out of a relationship, but the counter-argument can go fuck itself. Jenny (and this ep) are damn consequential, thank you vey much. (And thanks to Sergio. Literally never thought about that before.)

Well, Cody and Sergio got here. They're glad to see that Giles and Jenny (in their scene in Act I) might be getting back together. Sergio completely freaks when Willow is talking on the phone to Buffy, because he's remembered that "Angel was in your ROOM?" from 10 episodes back. (This is a bit of a switch, because usually Cody is the detail-oriented one. In their Out of Mind, Out of Sight review, when Giles mentions quantum mechanics, he instantly gives an analysis of how Marcie's situation is essentially an inverse of Schrödinger's Cat. [I almost understood it. Or, at least, that's what I tell myself.]) So there's one of those bombs I talked about last post going off. Meanwhile, I'm finding more lines to trigger me. Seriously, I fucking hate this episode. (In a "good" way. But still.)

Apparently, I can't beat my addiction to an approaching trainwreck, because I'm actually zooming through Cody and Sergio's vids just to get here. From their Lie to Me reaction: And from The Dark Age: And all I can do is think about what's coming up in 10 or so episodes, what they're walking right into. Seriously, what is wrong with me?? Oh, and speaking of Lie to Me: It's so weird to watch Joss plant the bombs and the reactors have no idea what's going on. To quote Xander: "I'm sick. I know it."

Just as Buffy said back in The Pack, she often bathes. She's actually known for it. Ethan's spell might take away her memories, but her natural affinity for her ablutions remains. (And no wonder she was so stressed when Angel saw her all dirty earlier on. A girl likes to be squeaky clean for her corpse, don't you know?) And yet, last episode, Cordelia claimed that Spandex™ was one of her "trademarks". And if Xander prefers her, he's sure doing a fine job of hiding it. I guess the Sunnydale version of "you can put lipstick on a pig" is "you can put Spandex™ on a bitca", huh?

Well, your judgment aside, you apparently have inadequate (if not specifically moronic) math skills. That was the third day of school. Day 1: Meeting up, Giles learns about Ms. Calendar dancing naked, Buffy has an angry workout, the vampires plan a plan, Buffy has a dream that Giles is the Master (Sergio, when we later seen Calendar unconscious: "It was Giles all along!"), Angel stops by. Day 2: Hype over Cibo Matto, the vampires dig up the bones, Bitch of the Year Dance at the Bronze, Cordelia and Calendar are kidnapped, Buffy sees the disturbed grave. Day 3: A very interesting discussion about trout, further research, Buffy walks into a trap…but it's not a trap for her, fighty-fighty-fight. And this is the aftermath, on Day 4. So Buffy had a problem with the math. ("What part?" "The math.") Of course, this is actually a Joss problem, not a Buffy problem. On Night 1, Absalom tells the vampires that their big event will occur "In three days". In other words, on Night 4, but in fact Buffy (and Angel) kill them all on Night 3. I like to think that Absalom had just built in an extra's wiggle room into the planning, since they had to find the burial site, dig up the bones, and kidnap 4 people, and who knows how long that would take, but still. It seems off. And of course, at the end, when the question of going to the Bronze comes up, Willow says "Wednesday night, kind of beat"…but since this is the fourth day shown in the episode, it should be Thursday. I suppose it's possible that school started on Friday (for whatever reason) and Buffy actually had a quiet weekend before the dream about Giles killing her (and Angel's visit) on Sunday night, but that seems unlikely. (Although it does fix one math problem if Absalom's pep talk was on Saturday and so Tuesday was always the intended day for resurrecting the Master…) But still. Buffy's the one who called herself a moron, and clearly got the number of days involved wrong. Obviously, she needs more math tutoring sessions with Willow. (Or snuggle sessions, but that's just my 'shipper glasses talking.)

According to Alyssa's testimony recorded above, that was due to her and Shannen having 'conflicts on set". Whether causing Alyssa stress with the deliberate idea of driving Alyssa to eat was part of Shannen's plan to "destroy" Alyssa or whether it was merely a side benefit ("bitch was trying to stress me out and she made me over-eat, too!") is unclear. I mean, clearly Alyssa (and her attorneys) are trying to monsterize Shannen, because their "defense" for not paying WME their commissions is "they signed Shannen, even though they knew she had caused me so much pain! It's a breach!", so I can't take this too seriously. (The part about Shannen causing Alyssa 'physical and emotional pain" seems a bit much, IMO.) But that's apparently what Milano was claiming, anyhow.

I was thinking that Xander wouldn't be able to get away with that "amnesia" fib for long, since Kyle and the gang would probably have to recount what happened as part of their pleas…but then I realized, why would they confess to anything? The official story is "wild dogs". You generally don't cop to murder and cannibalism if you don't have to. (Especially as pretty much nobody will believe that "we were possessed by hyena spirits" defense.) And it's not as if Buffy can go to the police (or even the new principal) and say "Actually, Kyle and Rhonda and Heidi and Tor killed Mr. Flutie and ate his body" since she hardly has any evidence, either. She can't even pin it on Dr. Weirick (the zookeeper), since he's dead, too. Yes, he's wearing odd robes and face paint, but to claim a Masai transpossession ceremony without anything else probably won't fly. So Buffy keeps her mouth shut, Xander gets away with his fib…and the mean kids get away with murder. A bit of a bummer, but if everything went swimmingly, Flutie (and Dr. Gregory, and Jesse) would still be alive. That's life on a Hellmouth, I guess.

Sergio (a reactor) thinks it's odd that Xander told his mom he was going to Ms. French's to work on a project, but the 1990s were different from our paranoid world; it wasn't too unusual for students to get one-on-one tutoring outside of school hours. Obviously, there were enough Pamela Smarts and Mary Kay Letourneaus out there to make people aware of predatory teachers (hence why Whedon did this episode), but the automatic "call Chris Hanson!" (or Chris Harrison, as Sergio mistakenly says, making me wish for the crossover series, To Catch a Bachelor) response wasn't so ingrained back then. Also, since Xander did tell his mom, he probably really wasn't expecting martinis and bamp-chicka-bamp-bamp, his random hopes aside. "Mom, I'm going to go fuck my biology teacher" wouldn't go over so well, I shouldn't think. (Particularly if Mother Harris isn't up-to-date on the latest school news. "Since when are you and Dr. Gregory dating?" is a convo Xander could do without, I bet.)

Well, Angel's a wuss. (Or Kendra had already done such damage that he would have needed to gather his strength to attack the cage, but by then the rising sun was already sapping his energy, so…) Wankety-wankety wank…