Halting Hex

Yes, yes, I'm sure there's a plot…but what about the important question? How long do we have to go into the episode before we get to see Ian Anthony Dale shirtless? (I'm not actually in the target audience for that, and I know IAD doesn't always appear shirtless…but I know his reputation for it, so I'm amused to see if he lives up to it. Carry on.)

I'm reasonably sure that the Nazis knew Esme was a plant from the moment 88 got back and told them. The whole bit where 88 "rescued" her from the other dude just so she could take the car (with the keys conveniently inside) was a way to set off the bomb. (They probably hoped to kill her and Aaliyah, but getting a cop satisfied them as well.) Indeed, I think Esme may have figured this out, which is why she had no compunctions in running over 88 as well. Aaliyah really was the worst girlfriend, though. (When I saw her in the courtroom, I was disappointed Esme wasn't on trial for killing her.) Not only does she contact proven killers behind Esme's back, not only does she use Esme's identity, not only does she use her knowledge of Esme's past to guilt her into doing her dirty work, but she's so controlling in her conversation. "Let's put this behind us." Excuse me, you don't get to make Esme's decisions for her, f-u very much. Try "I'd like to" or "I'm hoping" rather than commanding your girlfriend. And then there's that stupid courtroom speech (which somebody should have objected to, btw.) Aaliyah basically claims justification on Esme's behalf and never actually answers the question. The DA asks Aaliyah if Esme told her she was planning to kill the victims. The answer there is "No." Because "I see them" isn't a statement of intent. Anything could have happened between the phone call and when she ran them down. Hell, maybe she was just going to drive close and scare them and her brakes locked up. No wonder that Esme's lawyer wanted to plead her out, if she was going to be so incompetent she went for this "justification" defense. How about self-defense? The Nazis knew where to find her, they'd already tried to kill her once, the police weren't doing anything about it. Even if you don't get a complete walk, that's a good path to "diminished capacity" and manslaughter-second-degree. Also, how did they know she planned to kill them? Maybe she just wanted to injure them as they injured Jordan. (Yes, NY has that "reckless disregard for human life" murder-two statute so often used in Law and Order, but again, you could get diminished capacity on that.) Sitting in the car isn't premeditation; she could have been planning to call the cops when she saw them and just snapped. And how did they know Esme did it in the first place? Did she turn herself in? Did Aaliyah rat her out to get a chance to get on her soapbox at the trial? Agreement that the Orange County (NY) police were ridiculous to let Esme on the crime scene grounds. (Not to mention that they should have found the gun store flyer themselves.) Good work by Abigail (especially as she seems to have worked to lose weight between the flashback scenes and the trial ones; I guess prison food kills your appetite?), but annoying as usual. Sigh.

Well, I did say that he shouldn't have paid for the ticket. Not sure that "you can take a plane to Albuquerque, y'know" would qualify as "advice on how to get an abortion", as the state would have to prove that Clara didn't know there were clinics in New Mexico or that Lubbock had an airport. I grant you we'd be back in "he said, she said" territory, but if the jury doesn't believe her about his being the father, they'd be less likely to fall for "I never even thought about going to New Mexico until that bastard told me too!" either, IMO. (Clara does tell Jack that Oklahoma is useless for abortions, so she's clearly checked out at least one neighboring state on her own.)

Because I can't resist the obvious: Will Smith starring in the John Guare adaptation, Six Degrees of Bacon.

It's not fair for them to schedule March Madness on Aly Day; my two religions in conflict like that. The big 5-0 next year. I'm not sure that I'm ready. Thanks, Will.

Jack should have put Clara on a plane to Albuquerque. (Flights from Lubbock [via Houston] are surprisingly affordable.) And he should have contacted the organization that the clinic mentioned so he didn't pay for it. (He can make a "donation" to Planned Parenthood of New Mexico or whomever later. But he should know that directly providing transportation or funds in that situation opens you up to charges. It's not as if the laws that he was breaking have gone unpublicized. ) But never mind the details of the plot; I'd just like one episode where the courtroom procedure isn't horribly botched. Why was Clara a defense witness? How had the prosecution established a prima facie case without her testimony, given that this was pretty much a "he said, she said"? They'd never have made it past a motion for directed verdict without her already being on the stand. Now I know why the writer did it this way: they wanted Clara's lie about the baseball game on the radio to come up at the last possible minute, so that Britney and Clara's mom could be the heroes of the story. The writer was worried that having Jack and his attorney break Clara's story and expose her as a liar would be considered sexist or something like that. Plus all the "drama" where once Clara's off the stand, it's "summations in 15 minutes!" OMG, Jack is trouble if Britney doesn't save him RIGHT NOW! Except, of course, that Jack's attorney hadn't rested his case. So the call for summations would be reversible error, right there. And even if Clara had somehow been called as a defense witness (lucky for the DA, who was practically badgering her, which you can't do on direct), Jack's attorney would be entitled to redirect examination. If they wanted a woman to "rescue" Jack, why not have Jack employ a female attorney? The way a significant percentage of men facing similar charges do, not only so the jury subconsciously thinks "well, he can't be such a creep or she wouldn't be defending him" but also so that the accuser's credibility can be attacked without it coming across as "OMG THOSE HORRIBLE MEN! Leave her alone, you bastards!!" And speaking of Clara's story, no way in hell would the case ever go to trial with almost no details, just a last-second "um, we first had sex sometime in the spring, I don't remember when". What grand jury would indict without a specific accusation? And Clara would have given a statement to the police, which Jack and his attorney would have been given a copy of. Thus making it possible for basic alibi issues to come up, like perhaps on the night Clara claimed they had sex, Jack was actually at church with Britney and 200 witnesses, including Clara's mother. Or with the unseen Dustin, or someone else. Or the Texas Rangers didn't even have a game that night (or it was an afternoon game, or they were rained out, or the game was on the West Coast and didn't start until after Clara claimed Jack dropped her off after their encounter). Or any other factual gap, never mind the bit about how Jack doesn't listen to sports. So annoying. And it's not as if I'm an attorney; I just have a basic layperson's understanding, chiefly from watching almost 500 episodes of Law & Order and so on. Gah!

On the shallow tip, I thought Holly looked the worst. Middle age has hit her fast. (It's only been 5 years since PLL ended, right?) Rose looked fine to me. It's been a couple years since I last saw her (doing the talk-show rounds to advocate for Britney Spears), but the only difference I see is that she's blonde again. With Brian, I think it's just the hat casting shadows. In Connecticut, he's looking quite fine, IMO. I mean, not "fine" in the "I spend my life in the gym" Dorian sense or in the "I'm 12 years younger than Brian" Drew Fuller sense, but he's come through rehab and the mid-50s much better than Nicholas Brendon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), for example, I'd say. On the more "important" issue, now even the TNT showings have lost "How Soon Is Now" and the closing theme. The credits are so boring without the vocals. Love Spit Love can't be asking for that exorbitant an amount of royalties, I can't think. I guess this is Gresham's Law in action? Bad pushes out good? Once the cheapskate version started airing on SyFy, TNT just couldn't let any pennies go unpinched, I suppose. Blecccch.

Well, to be fair, the Xanya relationship arc is being developed here. They fight, she doesn't want to help him, she helps him and they're back together. I have no problems with that. Better to build than be static. I'm just not fond of a script inconsistency (again, in the time it takes Spike to talk himself out of action, Willow suddenly falls out "we have to save Buffy! And, er, Riley, too!" mode) that contradicts Willow's established character. Probably they should have put in an extra beat to service the other relationship, too. After all, W/T have an arc within the episode, too. It wasn't so long ago Tara had her supernatural freakout at Wlllow's hand on her knee. A re-establishment of physical contact in a positive context wouldn't be so bad for them, either. Of course, it's taken me 23 years to come up with this bit (so…old…), so I suppose I understand Tracey Forbes not catching it instantly, either. But still.

And RIP to Brad William Henke, who died way too young. (53, IIRC.) EDIT: No, Brad was 56. Still way too, though.

And correct you are! That's from the March 1998 BtVS panel at the Directors' Guild Theater, sponsored by the Paley Center and the Museum of TV and Radio. The show is in the break between airing Killed by Death and IOHEfY, but they're probably filming the finale at this point. (I never really noticed how much Buffy grew her blunt-cut out for the final four episodes. I guess that shows there was a certain passage of time between 2.18 and 2.19, even though Giles is still barely functional. Perhaps the poltergeists' attack snapped him out of it?)

Coming across Loandbehold's comment about his "rant" here in the regular thread for Superstar has led me to do another resurrection on Sarah's original essay (via Wayback, as with other similar threads). Alas, some of the screenshots she uses for illustrating the "fashion" disasters aren't showing up for me, but let me at least share the banner image with y'all. Charming, isn't he? I agree with too much of what Sarah writes to quote extensively, but let's quote one particularly acute analysis: (Except that's the wrong episode; Groener was in This Year's Girl, not 4.16.) As much as I have to hold my grade for the episode because of my usual complaint (the one JonW81 pointed out on TWoP back when, that Fuffy is way too focused on Joss's new toys [Tara, Riley, Chipped!Spike] instead of the Scoobies she actually hates), Sarah is correct in pointing up the converse, that all of Fuffy's actual antics get wasted. The Fuffley sex is made only about Faith's redemption and Buffy's subsequent jealousy; the part where Riley was virtually raped-via-deceit and the whole issue of his saying "I love you" to "Buffy" for the first time, only to find it's not her, that got dropped. Faith's attempt to wreck Tara's self-confidence apparently flops completely, and it's not as if Spike becomes all-Buffy obsessed because Fuffy cockteases him here. He isn't even motivated to gain any revenge for the humiliation; if Adam hadn't literally showed up in Spike's home, he would never have betrayed the group. Waste of (IMO misdirected) effort, again. I wouldn't go so far to say that the show has "an obsession" with Buffy and Riley's sex life; they're shown being sexual only three times in ten episodes and one of those isn't even really Buffy. But I do see the argument that Indeed, I wonder if this isn't also part of the problem with

Wait a second! Did Riley's mind go where I thought it went? Is Agent Finn suffering from "the Irish Curse", too? Riley, Riley. You don't need magic. It's not the size of the "gun", it's the action of the trigger finger. (Geez, is the whole Initiative overcompensating, then? To quote Yoicks!)

So that's my favorite part of the episode, as copied from above. But…wait. Aren't we missing something? Something such as… As copied from memory. As I'll probably be able to do, should I live as long as (the actual) Natalie French. I know, I know, the point of the joke is that Nick goes flying backward down the walk, not Alyson, but it hasn't been three minutes since "we have to go back!" A little consistency would not be remiss. Heck, given that Xander is a man with man-parts (and by this I mean his legs, perverts!), you easily have had Willow following him up the walk and simply had Xander out-pace her. (She can dodge the flying Xander; let's face it, she's probably had practice at that by now.) Indeed, you could have done this without any more dialogue, I suppose. So partly on that "peculiar" Canadian, Tracey Forbes, and partially on David Solomon, whose directing skills do tend to be a bit…direct, at times. (A couple of seasons ago, I might even have had Xander fly into Willow and end up in her lap, but it would be gauche to throw in gratuitous Xillow with Tara standing right there, I'll allow.)

If she was that good at spell-casting, presumably she could have found the Glove on her own and not have had to deal with either Lagos or the Scoobs. More likely is the idea of her having "sources in the demon community." There does seem to be a certain level of intercourse (not that kind, perverts!) between humans and demons, as seen with Willy's relationship (not that kind, perverts!) with Spike and his past history with Angel. So perhaps someone in the Watchers' Council has cultivated relationships with the demon world (perhaps Gwendolyne was even in charge of this at one point). It would be nice to know what sort of structure exists along these lines.

Heh, I missed this possibility when it was mentioned above. Not totally out of bounds, since while Gwen does ask Giles for a picture of Lagos at the top of Act I, she shades him when he doesn't actually produce it, and so "looks a lot like that woman from The English Patient's sister, actually" isn't completely ruled out. But since Giles thinks he has the Lagos image, presumably he might look at it, sooner or later, and so it is indeed more likely that Lagos was that big demonic dude, as opposed to being "by and large, woman-shaped" (to quote Giles's description of "Natalie French"). It could be, however, that Lagos was just in the area and Gwen just made up that "he's after the Glove!' riff to get Giles to do her work and find it for her. It's not as if we ever heard Lagos interrogate Willy the Snitch about the Glove, or anything similar. Lagos was clearly searching the cemeteries for something (it's why he ignores Faith during their "battle" and why he just moves on rather than finish her), but as we saw in What's My Line, Part 1, the cemeteries are full of stuff that might interest a demon. I do wonder how Gwen knew that Lagos was coming at all, though. Did he post about it on the Demons ICQ server? Or was he an ex-boyfriend? Or perhaps not. Occam's Razor, after all.

And Pedro has now gone on to be a presenter at the Oscars. Which might be a bit odd as he's currently starring in two TV series, but whatever. I'm still spun that they devoted part of the telecast to commercials for individual movie studios; I found that rather tacky. But congrats to Pedro, anyways.

Be cool if she got a guest appearance on Wednesday, considering her history with the character.

If you don't want Ximena (well, Angelica Celaya, anyhow), send her over here, please. I mean, your general point about Helen being far too glammed up is true, and Ginger Gonzaga is certainly attractive, but if we're taking a vote, I'm marking my choice with an "X" for Ximena. JMX.

Gotta love that "Madrid" is clearly still just Los Angeles. (As seen by the "One Way" and "Stop" signs in the picture above.) I guess I traveled farther than I thought when I would go downtown. Huh.

Huh, I had no idea that Laura "Pardon Me, But Do You Have Any Grey" Prepon was either Irish or Jewish. It's those mustard adverts (which our Euro contingent have probably never seen and have no idea what I'm on about) making me imagine she's as French as her name. Dommage. (And a happy 60th birthday to E.L. James, the "author" of Fifty Shades of Porn. I'd mock harder, but we had Season 6, so…)

Note: Truth or Consequences is the show that made Bob Barker a star as a game show host (1956-1975), before his longer stint onThe Price is Right. (1972-2007, so a few years of overlap.) And yes, Faith doesn't actually start doing missions for Hizzoner until the episode after Consequences, but I wanted to spotlight that we had a reference to Bob Barker in the dialogue and an episode with this particular name, so this is as good as I've got. Bob turned 99 this past December 12th, and is apparently in fine health. He came back to host TPiR on his 90th birthday in 2013; I wonder if similar plans for this December have been drawn up?

Was thinking about Whedon's general fondness for a particular phrase and then I realized he uses it to show character evolution during this episode: Nice repetition of the phrase to show how Xander moves from weakly protesting that he's no longer obsessed with Buffy to his being legitimately angry at her. He may not have lost all romantic feeling towards her (that look he gives while watching her weep on Angel's chest after the battle probably means something, or so Willow seems to think), but things are definitely more complex now. Takes most of the episode as opposed to the complete reversal that Buffy goes through between two consecutive "I don't care" lines in Prophecy Girl, but still of note. Well done, Whedon. Now perhaps your response to this analysis is "who cares?" but still…

More specifically, the problem is that there are too many of them. Three would be just fine (studious Vi, skeptical Rona, cocky Kennedy, for example). But "we just became an army" requires too many speaking parts. And I'm sure the staff thought that, since the First wants them all dead, they could get a cheap hit by killing one of them every so often, but honestly, that card is played by now. So having six actors (assuming we ever find where Chloe went to) occupying what should be at most three slots is just clogging the story. And we've enough damn problems with that already. Andrew is a complete waste of space, Anya's only still here because of her contract, and the writers don't even know what to do with Spike. Even taking the most reductionist view possible, you can justify Buffy (heroine), Xander (comedy), Willow (magic) and Dawn (damsel) having a place on the show. Giles has enough character history (and can facilitate the exposition) to be used when possible, and there's clearly history and story possibilities for Spike. But that's 5+ slots already; the most heroes this show has ever carried was 9 and that wasn't sustainable. Three SiTs should be the limit, and we're at double that, already. I mean, it's not even too effective dramatically. The First wants to wipe out the Slayer line? So say the Bringers kill Kennedy. Gee, that means there's only Molly, Amanda, Chloe, Rona and Vi left to go. (Plus any others Giles hasn't pulled out of his ass found yet.). Wake me when I need to worry. Yawn.

A new reactor recognition: the guys at Target Audience (I'm enjoying their Star Trek reactions) dipped their toes into the pilot and spotted Nick Brendon as "the guy from Coherence". (Which was apparently a low-budget but highly-praised sci-fi flick in 2013. And here I sat through Relative Chaos for the guy. Gotta keep up.) So that was a new one. Also watched this ep with a female reactor who turned out to be too spoiled for my taste, but who really had stars in her eyes over Julie Benz being "Rita from Dexter". Apparently, for some people, that's a very big deal. Nobody remembering HIMYM and spotting Aly, though. I'm bummed for Lily's sake. (My Avengers reactors all know Cobie as "Robin", so clearly some people remember that show, but…)