S03.E18: Earshot

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; It's all stunning. Jonathon shows his star quality, the mindreading is excellent, the comedy and action fantastic. If I was to select one ep to show to people to demonstrate how great the series is I think it would be this one. The only thing that could make it better would be if Faith and

Spoiler

Dawn (and Tara?)

were in it.

The Bad; Um? Well, the excuse of why Buffy can't read Angel's mind is rather stupid. It's also a letdown that we never get to read Faith's thoughts.

Best line; Hard to pick but I think I'll go for Jonathon 'You all think I'm an idiot. A SHORT idiot!" (although at 5'2 he's only an inch shorter than SMG, not "3 feet tall". Both Buffy and SMG seem to like tall men, Angel, Jerry O'Connell, Freddie Prinze, 

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Riley, Dracula, RJ

not one under 6ft. At least

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Spike/Parker

were more her size). The one I use all the time though is Oz's 'I call that a radical interpretation of the text' plus Angel's 'I'm a funny guy'. Buffy's entire speech to Jonathon is just too beautiful for words.

Character death; None, thankfully

Shot; Again none although Jonathon has a deer-rifle to kill himself. Some have asked why he uses something as cumbersome as a rifle but even the US has some gun control and they're easier to get than a handgun (because despite being more powerful they're difficult to conceal).

Tied up; Not this ep

Knocked out; Dinner lady by Buffy and Buffy herself faints.

Women good/men bad; Again a female villain

Kinky dinky;

Buffy is flattered by one of the male students admiring her beauty (love her bashful preening) then shocked that he wants to slam her against the lockers and ravish her (love to know what the second guy in that scene was thinking?). She won't always be so dainty, one day she'll happily allow

Spoiler

Spike to do that to her

and a whole lot more! But maybe it's an inherited thing amongst the Summer's girls as we finally discover the truth about Joyce and Ripper and the handcuffs on the hood of the police car?

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And Dawn will of course end up giving RJ a lapdance in 'Him

'. Seems denial and sluttiness run in the Summer's family? (as well as incredible beauty). Oz and Xander admire Cordy and the cheerleaders. Freddy describes them a 'pseudo prostitutes whipping men up into a sexual frenzy'. Wes considers himself a very bad man for lusting after Cordy. Cordy has kneemarks on her back but claims they're from the cheerleading pyramid. Once again Xander shows his yen for older women, fancying the English teacher. Willow tells Jonathon that 'fantasies are fun'. Xander questioning of a trio of babes seems to resemble the questions Playboy ask their Playmate of the Month rather than the FBIs serial killer profile (Nic Brendon later a recurring character on Criminal Minds dealing with FBI serial killer profilers).

Captain Subtext; Xander once again has one of his uncomfortable talks with Larry. Despite being able to read Willow's mind Buffy doesn't pick up any

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hints of lesbianism

. Her reading of Cordy's mind demonstrates that Cordy really doesn't have a subtext, she literally says what she thinks. Nice to see that The Merchant of Venice is still relevant in supernatural teen US series. Xander considers Wes 'Pierce Brosnany'.

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Where's Dawn? It would have been interesting to hear Dawn's thoughts about all things Sunnydale. The only time we see Wes meet Joyce and presumably the littlest Summers as well.

Questions and observations; Wonderful in just so many ways, perhaps the most perfect ep of Buffy ever.
Xander's maths needs work. Snyder is a Bangels fan (who isn't?). Love the headlines in the school paper, especially 'Apathy on the rise, no one cares'. The final tree gag makes me laugh every time and was apparently ASH's idea. The mislead with Jonathon is so clever. Would the Flaying of the Demon Azareth really be a bad thing? Presumably for the demon Azerath? Percy becomes a recurring character. 'Magic' Jane Espensons commentary is wonderful. The demons closely resemble the Drakh from Babylon 5. Angel comments that in his whole life he's only ever loved one girl, Buffy, which is bad news for

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Darla in season 2 of Angel;TS.

As Jane comments we see Angel hunting solo which is rare before his own show. What is with Willow's hat, is she taking up flyfishing or something? Or a fan of Alex Mack? Marks out of 10; 10/10 , up there with Dopplegangland as possibly the best ep ever

[Halting Hex]

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

It's all stunning

No, it's a decent-enough comedy episode that got over-hyped because of the delay in airing it. Never worth the plaudits it received.

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Jonathon shows his star quality

"Those two concepts are antithetical", to quote Xander.  The entire point of Jonathan (spell the name correctly! Not that the credits always do, IIRC) is that he's irrelevant to the point of invisibility.  Making him a key plot point is stretching the limits of credibility.

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

The Bad;

Well, the pace is too damn slow, obviously.  Buffy should discover her telepathy at the end of the teaser, not after a loooong Act I that we waste farting around on hyping the danger of The Mayor (who isn't actually in the episode, or relevant to it in any way) and various SHS interactions.  A sloppiness that is already becoming apparent, as David Greenwalt, who kept the story discipline moving, is now busy 

Spoiler

preparing the spinoff.

And Joss and Jane are just letting the scripts get more and more flaccid.

There's also the obvious plot hole at the end, where Giles and Wesley apparently stay at Buffy's place to have a four-way with Angel and Joyce rather than rush back to the school to help Buffy stop a murder.  (But Jane knows that nobody will die, so she doesn't need the characters to show any urgency.  Hack writing! Again!)  If nothing else, doesn't Buffy need a ride back to school?  (Season 1 established that it's Willow and Xander who live near the school;  Buffy lives near downtown and the Bronze.)  Plus we're still during school hours, so perhaps somebody should be in the Library, just in case they're needed?  Just a thought.

I grant you that Giles might be subtly drunk in this episode (as Willow says, since getting fired "he's not doing his best work", and Wesley figures out how to get the heart of the second demon while Giles is just pointlessly spewing insults), but even so.

And I really don't believe Jonathan's "I was going to kill myself" excuse.  Not only does it make no sense to commit suicide with a rifle (could he even work it?  His arms are probably too short), but why would he need to climb to the tower, exactly?  The only reason for a Charles Whitman-esque sniper vantage point is if you're planning on doing some sniping.

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Buffy's entire speech to Jonathon is just too beautiful for words.

Eh, it's skirting a little too close to "all those people down there? They've got more important things to worry about than you, you loser" for my tastes.  I grant you that my reading is now colored by Buffy's pretty much saying that explicitly 

Spoiler

to the Courteous Zombies in Lessons

but even so.  Nowadays, I find it harder to take "everybody has pain" as a statement on The Universality of Suffering than a "shut up with your whining, already" dismissal here.  But JMO.

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Again a female villain

Depends if you're counting the actress or the obviously-male (and about half the actress's size) stunt double.  Worst stunt hire ever.

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Xander considers Wes 'Pierce Brosnany'.

 

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Jane Espensons commentary is wonderful.

She's too in love with her own work, including that not-very-clever description.  (Brosnan is Irish and Denisof is playing English.  They're both brunet, but that's about it.) Meantime, I'm left wondering why we're suddenly being clubbed to death with "Xander is SOOOOO jealous of Wes/Cordy" after a season of his attentions and affections being more directed at Willow and Faith.  Feels cheap, IMO.

13 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Cordy has kneemarks on her back but claims they're from the cheerleading pyramid.

Which they almost certainly are.  You might get anklemarks from a, er, passionate embrace (although it's the male who's more likely to receive those) but if somebody was kneeling on Cordy's back the, er, more relevant bits would be flouncing about a few feet higher in the air.  Which seems rather a waste of an opportunity, IMO.

7/10; enjoyable enough but nothing hugely memorable.  Probably somewhere around #40-50 for the series as a whole.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

14 hours ago, nosleepforme said:

This is one of my favorite episodes, because of all the comedic episodes that Buffy has had throughout the run of the show, I think this one does work the best, because it's all grounded in the characters, but at the same time the episode is still telling a coherent story that leads up to a big emotional climax and twist at the end of the episode. Not a lot of the comedic episodes are this tight narratively.

 

I don't think Jonathan has star-quality, but I think the fact that he has been the background character that gets picked on for two seasons straight really sells the end of the episode, because it's not just a new character that they just introduced. As an audience member you have seen how he is tormented and ridiculed again and again, which is why this episode and Buffy's speech at the end have such a big impact. I kinda wish Jonathan's arc had ended in season three, because I don't like what they have done with his character post-season 3. I really liked the ending that he finds in this season,

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particularly with the confident smile that he gives in The Prom when he hands the Class Protector Award to Buffy.

Actually I thought it was a fun way to get around it. I am not sure if I would have wanted to hear Angel's thoughts. And I am also quite happy that Faith is not in this episode, because what I really like about it is that it is this stand-alone episode and with Faith in it, they immediately would have had to tell a different story, because Faith would have taken advantage of Buffy's weakened state of mind, so the murder mystery and the Buffy monologue to Jonathan wouldn't have had the same place and importance in the episode.

 

I think my favorite moment in the episode is Cordelia asking Mr. Beach if he is planning on killing all the students. But Buffy finding about Giles and Joyce is a close second.

 

I loved that headline and the new guest characters that they had for this episode. Too bad they never brought the curly-haired Type-A student and the school paper guy back for any more episodes.

 

The music in this episode by Christophe Beck is also really good yet again.

Apparently if you bring back a character as recurring you have to pay the writer who created them each time, why studios don't like too many recurring characters whilst fans/writers love them. You're right, it has more impact given the character we know and Faith would have meant a bit of arc having to be included but maybe just in passing, the Mayor is attending some civic event and Buffy passes by, locks eyes with her and hears her thoughts.  

[Joe Hellandback]

8 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

No, it's a decent-enough comedy episode that got over-hyped because of the delay in airing it. Never worth the plaudits it received.

"Those two concepts are antithetical", to quote Xander.  The entire point of Jonathan (spell the name correctly! Not that the credits always do, IIRC) is that he's irrelevant to the point of invisibility.  Making him a key plot point is stretching the limits of credibility.

Well, the pace is too damn slow, obviously.  Buffy should discover her telepathy at the end of the teaser, not after a loooong Act I that we waste farting around on hyping the danger of The Mayor (who isn't actually in the episode, or relevant to it in any way) and various SHS interactions.  A sloppiness that is already becoming apparent, as David Greenwalt, who kept the story discipline moving, is now busy 

  Reveal hidden contents

preparing the spinoff.

And Joss and Jane are just letting the scripts get more and more flaccid.

There's also the obvious plot hole at the end, where Giles and Wesley apparently stay at Buffy's place to have a four-way with Angel and Joyce rather than rush back to the school to help Buffy stop a murder.  (But Jane knows that nobody will die, so she doesn't need the characters to show any urgency.  Hack writing! Again!)  If nothing else, doesn't Buffy need a ride back to school?  (Season 1 established that it's Willow and Xander who live near the school;  Buffy lives near downtown and the Bronze.)  Plus we're still during school hours, so perhaps somebody should be in the Library, just in case they're needed?  Just a thought.

I grant you that Giles might be subtly drunk in this episode (as Willow says, since getting fired "he's not doing his best work", and Wesley figures out how to get the heart of the second demon while Giles is just pointlessly spewing insults), but even so.

And I really don't believe Jonathan's "I was going to kill myself" excuse.  Not only does it make no sense to commit suicide with a rifle (could he even work it?  His arms are probably too short), but why would he need to climb to the tower, exactly?  The only reason for a Charles Whitman-esque sniper vantage point is if you're planning on doing some sniping.

Eh, it's skirting a little too close to "all those people down there? They've got more important things to worry about than you, you loser" for my tastes.  I grant you that my reading is now colored by Buffy's pretty much saying that explicitly 

  Reveal hidden contents

to the Courteous Zombies in Lessons

but even so.  Nowadays, I find it harder to take "everybody has pain" as a statement on The Universality of Suffering than a "shut up with your whining, already" dismissal here.  But JMO.

Depends if you're counting the actress or the obviously-male (and about half the actress's size) stunt double.  Worst stunt hire ever.

 

She's too in love with her own work, including that not-very-clever description.  (Brosnan is Irish and Denisof is playing English.  They're both brunet, but that's about it.) Meantime, I'm left wondering why we're suddenly being clubbed to death with "Xander is SOOOOO jealous of Wes/Cordy" after a season of his attentions and affections being more directed at Willow and Faith.  Feels cheap, IMO.

Which they almost certainly are.  You might get anklemarks from a, er, passionate embrace (although it's the male who's more likely to receive those) but if somebody was kneeling on Cordy's back the, er, more relevant bits would be flouncing about a few feet higher in the air.  Which seems rather a waste of an opportunity, IMO.

7/10; enjoyable enough but nothing hugely memorable.  Probably somewhere around #40-50 for the series as a whole.

 

We didn't have the Columbine delay in the UK and it is still a classic. Making Jonathon the key plot point is GENIUS simply because he's the person everyone ignored but you really care for him. I love the pacing, slow and leisurely a first but getting more and more urgent as we approach the climax. True, what did Wes and Giles do after curing Buffy? Maybe go back to trying to figure things out in the library.

 As I've said, easier to get a rifle than a pistol and you can always pull the trigger with your toes.  Pierce is Irish (although raised in London since he was 10) playing Scottish/French James Bond, Alexis is Russian/American playing English but I find both him and James totally convincing. 

 Yeah, the lunch lady stunt double is pretty bad (you also see her in BBB and IOHEFY) but forgivable for such a great ep. 

Edited July 17, 2018 by Joe Hellandback

[Halting Hex]

Killing myself by firing a rifle with my TOES wouldn't be on my "Top 100 Ways to Commit Suicide" list.  I mean, seriously.  You've got gas in your house; just turn it on and have a nicely permanent lie-down.  

(Bonus points for reading a volume of Sylvia Plath's poetry before you drift off into the big sleep…)

[wendyg]

1 hour ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Alexis is Russian/American playing English but I find both him and James totally convincing. 

Denisof lived in the UK for more than ten years; his English accent (and the way he moves his mouth) is flawless; Denisof is effectively bilingual, in the opinion of English friends. Marsters' accent, however, is awful in the early episodes. ASH took him in hand and personally worked on it with him, so it improved a *lot* in the course of the series. But it still never sounds fully natural to me.

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎17‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 11:14 AM, wendyg said:

Denisof lived in the UK for more than ten years; his English accent (and the way he moves his mouth) is flawless; Denisof is effectively bilingual, in the opinion of English friends. Marsters' accent, however, is awful in the early episodes. ASH took him in hand and personally worked on it with him, so it improved a *lot* in the course of the series. But it still never sounds fully natural to me.

I live in England and Spike fooled me, as for Alexis I understand he and ASH did a play together and he was at the RSC. I could even take Alexis as Bond. 

[lembergwatcher]

That interrogation scene... Everytime I see the wacky kitty on Willow's shirt, I crack a smile.

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎24‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 10:44 PM, lembergwatcher said:

That interrogation scene... Everytime I see the wacky kitty on Willow's shirt, I crack a smile.

Yeah, I miss cutesy Willow but I like Renaissance Fair Willow too. 

[lembergwatcher]

I wonder if any of the Scoobs has bought Xander a coke, for it was he who identified an attempted mass murderer right from the start? They put together a list of suspects including a dozen people except for the lunch lady (well, they interviewed Jonathan, who was apparently plotting a little shootout at school, but it was lady's voice Buffy heard in the cafeteria). Just because it was Xander's suggestion 'bout the lunch lady's involvement, this version was ruled out immediately and cast aside as "bullshit". Good "friends", my ass. 

It was painful to watch as they did their best to marginalize Xander starting with season 3. The guy who could literally intimidate Angel or the Slayer herself in the previous seasons, was already becoming a walking and talking caricature, whom nobody took seriously. 

Spoiler

I'm still curious why would Buffy suddenly put him into position of responsibility while dealing with the Mayor in Graduation Day, Part 2, when all of them didn't give a fuck about what Xander said ever?

[Joe Hellandback]

9 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

I wonder if any of the Scoobs has bought Xander a coke, for it was he who identified an attempted mass murderer right from the start? They put together a list of suspects including a dozen people except for the lunch lady (well, they interviewed Jonathan, who was apparently plotting a little shootout at school, but it was lady's voice Buffy heard in the cafeteria). Just because it was Xander's suggestion 'bout the lunch lady's involvement, this version was ruled out immediately and cast aside as "bullshit". Good "friends", my ass. 

It was painful to watch as they did their best to marginalize Xander starting with season 3. The guy who could literally intimidate Angel or the Slayer herself in the previous seasons, was already becoming a walking and talking caricature, whom nobody took seriously. 

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I'm still curious why would Buffy suddenly put him into position of responsibility while dealing with the Mayor in Graduation Day, Part 2, when all of them didn't give a fuck about what Xander said ever?

Xander makes a habit of that, unknowingly predicting  the solution in Him as well. I don't think he's marginalized as The Zeppo proves.  

[Halting Hex]

To be fair, the voice Buffy hears is (allegedly) so enraged that you can't tell the gender.

[lembergwatcher]

Can you imagine enraged Jonathan?

[lembergwatcher]

51 minutes ago, nosleepforme said:

Xander did not identify the attempted mass murderer on purpose, he made a joke that ironically turned out to be correct

He deserved some coke anyway. Well, he didn't push probably for the same reason he didn't tell his friends about his adventures depicted in The Zeppo the next morning: who would believe someone who's only purpose was to be the clown and comic relief? Willow would roll her eyes at his suggestion, 'cause, you know only Giles-type guys or Angel, or her own wishy-washy boyfriend can say some wiser things.

 

1 hour ago, nosleepforme said:

I also don't think that Xander was marginalized starting with season 3.

He was. Almost the moment Buffy returned to SunnyD. He contributed only occasionally, while his input in two previous seasons was more visible. Gone were the days of The Harvest, The Pack, I, Robot... You, Jane, Nightmares, Prophecy Girl, When She Was Bad, Some Assembly Required, School Hard, Inca Mummy Girl, Reptile Boy, Halloween, Lie To Me, The Dark Age, Bad Eggs, Innocence, Phases, Killed by Death, Go Fish, Becoming, Part 2. He wasn't even there in Faith, Hope & Trick, Beauty and the Beasts, Helpless or Bad Girls. His contribution in Homecoming and Band Candy was mild (yeah, footsie was great, but other than that?Snyder played a bigger role in the latter ep). Being depicted as miserable loser at the beginning of The Zeppo (only to have some small moment of glory, which none of the Scoobs witnessed) didn't work for me either. No significant input in Lovers Walk or Consequences (he tried to reach out to Faith and nearly died as a result, while the Scoobs let the bitch continue slaying even after attempted murder of their friend. Speaks volumes about his position in the group. If Faith tried to do something like that to Willow or babyAngel, than Buffy would kill her right in that episode). And being punched in the face by Buffy's Brooding Boy in Enemies (again no apologies, no nothing, Buffy was all "get over it") wasn't exactly the sign of prominence.

Spoiler

Just running errands in Choices and The Prom. Only episode's finale was some sort of a bone thrown to Xander's fans, but I didn't buy it back then, and I'm not buying it now. They didn't give a damn about his mystical military knowledge since Innocence, it was never mentioned until Graduation Day, Part 2 as far as I remember, and its existence didn't help at all when the Scoobs all of a sudden decided Xander had no place in the fight, because he wasn't special in The Zeppo.

[Halting Hex]

Absolutely true.  I once even did a chart to show this.

To be fair, Giles also sees his role reduced.  I think he gets to be active in like five episodes.  (Dead Man's Party, Gingerbread, The Zeppo, Bad Girls, and Döppelgängland.) He also hops around while stoned out of his mind in Band Candy and is useful in the alternate universe of The Wish and takes out a henchvamp in Helpless, but even if you give him those, that's barely a third of the season.  The difference being that he usually gets periodic Library scenes with Buffy, where Xander completely vanishes from large chunks of episodes.

[Halting Hex]

So I'm looking at (parts of) this, and I notice that in the scene where Angel feeds Buffy the potion to cure her, Buffy's bedroom is just flooded with sunlight.  I mean, Angel's practically bathing in it.  Which obviously is a problem.

It would be one thing if this was just a "David stepped off of his mark a bit" minor flub, but it's broad daylight and the light is streaming in through Buffy's windows, completely obliterating any shadows. And it's not as if the script had been oblivious to these issues; there are two separate "Angel needs to avoid sunlight" bits earlier in the episode.  First when Buffy comes to visit him and she apologizes for pulling back the curtain and nearly exposing him to the light, and second when Angel comes over to deliver the potion and arrives under a blanket, smoking.

Just a complete blind spot by the director, Regis B. Kimble.  Who, to be fair, is normally the series's editor (he's had a fine editing career, but this was his first directing gig), but still, somebody should have caught it.  I mean, even David could be "wow, that sunlight is all in my face.  Pretty sure Angel doesn't like that" or something…

[Joe Hellandback]

Just watched 'What Women Want' last night, okay flick, VERY reminiscent of this ep and came out a year later. and Eric Balfour so to Buffy in one. 

[Halting Hex]

(Hmm, that's odd; I lost my initial reply because of an error when posting.  Normally, the board's editor function retains text better than that.)

I've always found What Women Want very chauvinist (since Gibson is basically cheating the way Buffy does in Shakespeare class, except that he's using the telepathy to gain an advantage in his relationships…unfortunately, none of the female characters have Angel's vampiric immunity, at least IIRC), but to each their own.  Have you gone to see the Taraji P. Henson remake, with the genders swapped?

22 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

and Eric Balfour so to Buffy in one. 

Better yet, Juanita Jennings (Dr. Wilkinson, Killed by Death) is in it as well, so Balfour's as disposable as Jesse was.  Take a hike, son…take a hike.

[OT]

Spoiler

The strange thing about WWW is that Noted Sexist Pig Gibson cast a lot of actresses with very strong bi/lesbian rumors.  (You've got Helen "Rosie O'Donnell talked about the orgies I threw" Hunt, Lauren "Hollywood Wives Club" Holly, Sarah Paulson [now out and proud], and Marisa "owe my career to Liz Smith" Tomei, for starters. And Lisa Edelstein gets her name thrown around, too, but I don't know those details.) Was Mel working out some iss-yews or something?  Very strange. 

At least Edelstein was the only Jewish one of the group…we wouldn't want Gibson to have a stroke…I guess.  Maybe. (Edit: Helen Hunt is 1/4 Jewish, now that I recall it.  But she was raised Methodist, so Mel can breathe easy…damn, I really hate his bigoted ass.)

(And I hope Lauren and Sarah didn't get into a fight over who got to bring Amanda Peet to the after-party…)[/OT]

Edited February 18, 2019 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

(Hmm, that's odd; I lost my initial reply because of an error when posting.  Normally, the board's editor function retains text better than that.)

I've always found What Women Want very chauvinist (since Gibson is basically cheating the way Buffy does in Shakespeare class, except that he's using the telepathy to gain an advantage in his relationships…unfortunately, none of the female characters have Angel's vampiric immunity, at least IIRC), but to each their own.  Have you gone to see the Taraji P. Henson remake, with the genders swapped?

Better yet, Juanita Jennings (Dr. Wilkinson, Killed by Death) is in it as well, so Balfour's as disposable as Jesse was.  Take a hike, son…take a hike.

[OT]

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The strange thing about WWW is that Noted Sexist Pig Gibson cast a lot of actresses with very strong bi/lesbian rumors.  (You've got Helen "Rosie O'Donnell talked about the orgies I threw" Hunt, Lauren "Hollywood Wives Club" Holly, Sarah Paulson [now out and proud], and Marisa "owe my career to Liz Smith" Tomei, for starters. And Lisa Edelstein gets her name thrown around, too, but I don't know those details.) Was Mel working out some iss-yews or something?  Very strange. 

At least Edelstein was the only Jewish one of the group…we wouldn't want Gibson to have a stroke…I guess.  Maybe. (Edit: Helen Hunt is 1/4 Jewish, now that I recall it.  But she was raised Methodist, so Mel can breathe easy…damn, I really hate his bigoted ass.)

(And I hope Lauren and Sarah didn't get into a fight over who got to bring Amanda Peet to the after-party…)[/OT]

I didn't think it was that sexist, it rather made fun of both sides. 

[Halting Hex]

(And now the original failed posting shows up, just when I don't need it.  Git along, li'l dogie, git along…)

Back to the episode, while I've never been a fan of the "Xander is so jealous of Wes/Cordy" focus we've been getting here, I just realized how jarring it is in this episode.  I mean, Xander's all "he's got his [whatever] eyes on my Cordy!"…and he's saying this to Oz.  You know, the guy who remembers that Cordelia dumped Xander…because Xander was cheating on Cordy for over a month…with Oz's girlfriend. 

Acting all possessive about CC after the fact when it was your wandering lips that caused the breakup is a bit much, honestly.  And much as I prefer Xillow to Wiz, for Xander to be seeking sympathy from Oz on these issues is just tacky.  Bad, Xander!  (Or bad Jane Espenson, to put the blame where it belongs.)

[Joe Hellandback]

Just reading 'Dusted', a Buffy episode guide book, disagree with a lot of it but one thing that strikes me as a mistake is that they claim the Nancy from the White Hats in The Wish is the same character as resents Buffy in this ep. They're played by different actresses, does anyone know if they were intended to be the same character? I always thought they missed a trick by not bringing back someone like Theresa from Phases for the role. 

[lembergwatcher]

On 2/18/2019 at 6:59 PM, Halting Hex said:

I mean, Xander's all "he's got his [whatever] eyes on my Cordy!"…and he's saying this to Oz.  You know, the guy who remembers that Cordelia dumped Xander…because Xander was cheating on Cordy for over a month…with Oz's girlfriend. 

Acting all possessive about CC after the fact when it was your wandering lips that caused the breakup is a bit much, honestly.  And much as I prefer Xillow to Wiz, for Xander to be seeking sympathy from Oz on these issues is just tacky.  Bad, Xander!

Come on, Xander, you should totally get over Cordelia. Forget about that bitch already, man.

I think what we've got here is just another case of chronic espensonism, pure and simple. Apparently Jane either doesn't know a thing about continuity or simply loves the character assassinations. Consistent characterization is too much for her to handle.

Not to mention that after displaying his jealousy over C/W 

Spoiler

(I'm afraid to think what Xander's possible reaction could be if he learned about Cordy/Angel or Cordy/Groo in the following seasons [ case he still cared and wasn't enslaved by his bitch from hell]?)

Xander fantasizes about "naked Buffy" several scenes later.  Earshot lacks one more scene where Buffy learns about Xander's lust for Willow's lips/breasts/overall nudity. How can I forget the way he looked at Willow in her vampiric doppelganger's outfit, after all?.. 

3 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

they claim the Nancy from the White Hats in The Wish is the same character as resents Buffy in this ep. They're played by different actresses, does anyone know if they were intended to be the same character?

I don't think so. Earshot is Jane's episode, i.e. you have to forget about the things like continuity or logic.

3 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

I always thought they missed a trick by not bringing back someone like Theresa from Phases for the role.

Which role? Nancy from the White Hats or Nancy the Buffy's rival? Although bringing back Megahn Perry would have been a good idea.

Edited May 28, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Joe Hellandback]

18 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Come on, Xander, you should totally get over Cordelia. Forget about that bitch already, man.

I think what we've got here is just another case of chronic espensonism, pure and simple. Apparently Jane either doesn't know a thing about continuity or simply loves the character assassinations. Consistent characterization is too much for her to handle.

Not to mention that after displaying his jealousy over C/W 

  Reveal spoiler

(I'm afraid to think what Xander's possible reaction could be if he learned about Cordy/Angel or Cordy/Groo in the following seasons [ case he still cared and wasn't enslaved by his bitch from hell]?)

Xander fantasizes about "naked Buffy" several scenes later.  Earshot lacks one more scene where Buffy learns about Xander's lust for Willow's lips/breasts/overall nudity. How can I forget the way he looked at Willow in her vampiric doppelganger's outfit, after all?.. 

I don't think so. Earshot is Jane's episode, i.e. you have to forget about the things like continuity or logic.

Which role? Nancy from the White Hats or Nancy the Buffy's rival? Although bringing back Megahn Perry would have been a good idea.

Theresa from Phases, the girl Angelus kills and Buffy fights later from her coffin. 

[Halting Hex]

On 5/28/2019 at 8:47 AM, lembergwatcher said:

Xander fantasizes about "naked Buffy" several scenes later.  Earshot lacks one more scene where Buffy learns about Xander's lust for Willow's lips/breasts/overall nudity.

To be fair, Xander is just generally thinking about "naked girls" at first.  He only specifically focuses on Buffy because Buffy's the one peeking into his brain with the psychic powers (and amusedly ogling his panic).  AFAHK, any Willow-thoughts are safely hidden from the redhead, but Buffy, being cause of his lack-of-privacy anxiety, is naturally on his mind.

[Halting Hex]

As much as I bag about the jokefest here, Sarah Michelle Gellar found a joke that isn't even in the script.  Clever!

In Shakespeare class, when Buffy is (we later discover) reading Ms. Murray's mind and repeating her senior thesis back to her:

Quote

BUFFY:  [Iago] sort of admits himself that his motives are spurious.

And that's all there is in the script; no stage directions or anything.  But Smidge puts this quizzical intonation into "spurious", as if she's not sure that she "heard" Ms. Murray correctly.  As if perhaps Buffy doesn't know what "spurious" means.

(Well, perhaps that's over-harsh.  More likely, Buffy just isn't used to "hearing" it used in conversation.)

A nice subtle funny.  Well done, Sarah.

**************************************

Now, back to my regulary-scheduled mockery:

So Angel kills the demon and gets its heart and brings it to Buffy's house to cure her.  But…by this time, we've seen multiple scenes of the Scoobs at school.  It's specifically stated that we're almost at the noon deadlne.  So, what kept Angel?  He fought the demon at night, perforce.  (We saw that.)

Even if you allow that brewing the demon heart into a potion takes time, wouldn't Angel have been better served to get the heart to Buffy's house (or Giles's place, or the SHS Science Lab) before dawn, and work together with Giles or Wesley or Willow to get the job done quicker, with no "how is Angel running around in the sunshine, exactly?" plotholes?  (Yeah, yeah, he has a blanket.  What, did he drive up Joyce's front walk?). But Jane just wants Angel to make his dramatic entrance at the last possible moment, logic be damned.  Hack!

***********************************************

Quote

CORDELIA (as Buffy recovers from her collapse):  I told them not to move you.  They probably severed your spinal column.

DARCIE (reactor):  Yeah, why would they move her?  That's the last thing you should do.

ME (bitter):  Because Jane wants to make Cordelia look shallow, with all her thoughts being about how cold she is, as compared to the other Scoobs worrying about Buffy.  Never mind how the fact that Cordy never says "I'm cold" completely invalidates Jane's previous "Cordelia just says whatever is on her mind" joke.  Hack!

Seriously, I think Jane must hate Cordelia most of all.

I know she treats Xander like shit, but at least Xander gets to show some intelligence during his questioning of Larry.  (In between his using the search for mass-murderer as a way to chat up girls, and his being distracted from hunting said mass-murderer by Jello™.) I realize it's only there so that Xander can have another "hilarious" gay panic, but it's still more than Cordy gets. 

Last season, she subtly interrogated Don the Sexy Security Guard (when that wasn't even her job, she just had to cover for Xander).  This season?  She just flat-out asks Mr. Beach if he's planning to kill a bunch of students.  Uh-huh, sure.

And while Xander's idiocies are painful, at least he didn't read the "killer's" "confession" out loud and pout that it wasn't a letter praising the cheerleaders.  (And that's the generous interpretation;  Jane probably didn't intend us to think that CC ignored Jonathan's statement of intent, but that she didn't even realize he was saying he was the shooter.  She's not just shallow, she's stupid!  Whatever, Jane.) Sure, Cordelia did key research on multiple episodes last season (Ted, Killed by Death, she helps spur Willow in the right direction in The Dark Age, and she's trying her best in Innocence), but the idea that Cordelia would focus on the problem rather than chase (pun!) after scraps of praise for the cheerleaders?  Don't be silly!  She's exactly the same as Harmony!

(Wasn't there an entire episode last year literally devoted to Cordelia realizing she was better than the Harmonys of the world?  Nah, I must have imagined that, too…)

Edited October 23, 2022 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

On 10/21/2022 at 11:07 AM, Halting Hex said:

Seriously, I think Jane must hate Cordelia most of all.

Slightly off-topic, but...
Does Jane love ANY Buffyverse character? 

Spoiler

Well, except Spike, of course...

[Halting Hex]

2 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Slightly off-topic, but...
Does Jane love ANY Buffyverse character? 

  Reveal spoiler

Well, except Spike, of course...

Oh, plenty of them.  For example, this is Jane's third riff on the "Giles and Joyce boinked" topic, and while Band Candy did most of the "Giles is so cool!" work on that plotline, it's here that we learned that, er, "TWICE???"  Which is more than I needed to know, but even so.

And she does fine work on Oz here; not so much the "deep thoughts" that Buffy over-hears, but we see that Oz has a sense of humor about his lack of expression, that he can accurately diagnose Hogan's neuroses (although he might be vulnerable to being misled by his disdain for Hogan/jocks), and he continues to be humble about his and the Dingoes' lack of skill.  It might be the best episode for character work on Wolfboy so far.

Spoiler

And of course "Jonathan shows his star quality", to quote Joe, above, but most of the evidence of Jane's fetish for the Tiny King (and later Andrew) is in future seasons, hence the spoiler bars.

While Jane does definitely not feel too kindly towards Willow, I should note that, aside from the "Willow rubs it in about how Buffy can't go the game" nonsense in Act I, the redhead doesn't fare too badly here.  She's totally cute (and in character) both in her nervous worry that the telepathy will come between here and Buffy, and in organizing the "homework" that she gives to the Scoobs.  And, where Xander and Cordelia are presented as shallow idiots interviewing the students, all Willow has to endure is a re-run of a scene that Jane stole from David Fury & Elin Hampton, aka "Willow interrogates Jonathan, v. 2.0"

Sure, the copy has less of a punchline than the original:

Quote

From Go Fish:

WILLOW:  Blah blah, raised a monster from the seas, didn't you? (awkward beat). Didn't you?
JONATHAN:  What? No!  I just snuck in…and peed in the pool.

WILLOW:  Oh. (reacting) Ew!

Quote

From this episode:

WILLOW:  Do you understand what I'm saying?
JONATHAN (not a chance):  You want me to pay attention to you?

…but sequels usually don't live up to what's gone before, so that's understandable.

[Halting Hex]

Another bit of nice work from our Smidge:

Quote

GILES (reading):  It says they can infect the host.

BUFFY (worried): Infect? (stronger) Infect?

Giles is still reading

BUFFY (forceful):  GILES! "Infect"??

Whereas in the script it just says

Quote

BUFFY:  Infect? Infect? …Infect??

Nice job adding depth.  Reminds me of the scene at the top of Act I in Inca Mummy Girl ("Slaying involves certain sacrifices, blah, blah, bitty-blah, I'm so stuffy, give me a scone"), where the script simply had the lines that were said; the bit where Buffy "convinces" Giles to let her go to the dance by cocking her leg and preparing to give him a particularly strong practice kick is just improv from SMG, ASH and director Ellen S. Pressman.

I guess that's a sign of experienced actors; they can find unintended nuances in a scene.  Well done.