S04.E11: Doomed

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; Some good fights and character advancement and some excellent comedy. Favourite bit off all has to be Spike's 'American' accent (all the more brilliant when you think that this is an American playing an English character playing an American)

The Bad; Riley says the demon is 3 metres tall which would make it nearly ten feet and seems way too much (drug dealers aside Americans never did learn to use the metric system). He estimates it at 120kgs. How exactly? Buffy's leap down the Hellmouth beggars belief but maybe the laws of physics work differently there.

Best line; Giles; "It's the end of the world" Xander/Willow; "Again!"

Character death; One dead guy at party

Knocked out; Giles again

Women good/men bad; Poor Willow, inadvertently wounded by Percy at the party.

Jeez!; Willow lying in the guys blood and the symbol carved into his chest

Kinky dinky; The partygoers want to play 'naked limbo'. Riley says his skin is 'humming'. He also says he's not going to 'force himself upon' Buffy.

Calling Captain Subtext; Spike calls Xander a poof.

Apocalypses; 5, the demons want to open the Hellmouth

Questions and observations; Percy back, hooray. Last time we'll see him unfortunately. Xander is now a pizza delivery boy just as Cordy predicted. Interesting that just as Spike says, Willow and Xander at the end are still the High School Nerds watching TV in their basement. Oddly enough Giles tries to 'Scully' Buffy both in this ep and in Hush. Marc Blucas appears in the titles for the first time. In many ways this is making the point that Xander and Willow are still the geeks they were in High School, Willow is lost at the party, she doesn't have Oz any more and

Spoiler

doesn't have Tara yet.

Riley says they track demons by their pheromones, very like how Adam Baldwin's MiB's track the alien in Predator 2. Buffy refers to Faith and says that Slayers don't live past 25

Spoiler

(she and Faith both have now, they're the most successful Slayers ever)

. It's actually Xander who figures out the demons are the sacrifices. Quite a long ep coming in at 42 minutes (Amends is the longest at nearly 43).

Marks out of 10; 6/10, nothing wrong with it but it comes after a very strong couple of eps

[Loandbehold]

9 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Buffy's leap down the Hellmouth beggars belief but maybe the laws of physics work differently there.

It's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. What Buffy did violated the laws of gravity. Then again, she never studied law.

[wendyg]

We'll just have to pretend that the demon got caught on a tree branch on the way down, and that's how Buffy caught him so she could haul him back out.

[Joe Hellandback]

17 hours ago, Loandbehold said:

It's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. What Buffy did violated the laws of gravity. Then again, she never studied law.

Sounds like one for Mythbusters.

15 hours ago, wendyg said:

We'll just have to pretend that the demon got caught on a tree branch on the way down, and that's how Buffy caught him so she could haul him back out.

Magic and science don't mix as the Initiative will find out. 

[Joe Hellandback]

22 hours ago, nosleepforme said:

Up to this day, I cannot tell if this episode is actually good or whether it just feels so lackluster because it's coming right after Hush. This episode kind of proves though that a potential apocalypse has no stakes if there is no build-up to it, if it is only a storytelling device. The episode gets bonus points for showing Amy the rat though and I do like the way Buffy's and Riley's relationship progresses, though I think this may have been one of the last episodes in which Riley was actually interesting and charming. The comedy around Spike in this episode is not very enjoyable to me, making fun of suicide is not funny and putting him into a hideous Xander shirt is too much of an effort to create a comedic moment and thereby falls flat.

 

While the actor is a hot piece of ass, thankfully we don't see him again after he treated Willow so horribly in this episode. What an asshole.

 

To be fair, to this day I have never figured out the American system with their 5 foot 7 inches and what not.

The apocalypse was never the point of this ep, it was just a way to make Riley useful. I liked the Spike comedy, you can't really take it all this seriously and his American accent is hilarious. 

I don't think Percy was actually nasty, he was just trying to write Will off for his jealous girlfriend. As for metric/imperial I always just use 12 inches to 30 cm. 

[Halting Hex]

Thrown together by three writers over a weekend because Hush had them so far behind over the production schedule, I like this one way more than it arguably merits (WTF is wrong with Giles's voice in the B/G scene?  ASH sounds very badly looped) and it's one that I often turn to as comfort food.

In tribute, here's a little something to appreciate from all of those involved:

Quote

BUFFY: Meanwhile by day, you pretend to be Riley Finn, cornfed Iowa boy.  Ever been to Iowa, Riley?  God, if that's even your name… (Marti)

Quote

WILLOW: No Word of Valios

XANDER: Not even a syllable of Valios (Jane)

Quote

BUFFY: Then I saw the lights and I was like, "of course! Death, carnage…it's a Buffy party!"

..........

WILLOW:  There was so much blood, and there was a symbol…and Percy said I was a nerd! (Dave, showing off his "comedy triplet" skills, twice)

Aww.  Although I agree with Joe, Percy was just tapdancing because Laurie was (accurately) suspicious. It's just that Willow's overly sensitive right now. 

And, to be fair to Laurie, Willow really should have been more clear that there was nothing going on between her and Percy last year.  Will seemed just a shade territorial, IMO.

Still any scene that's all about Buffy comforting Willow is pretty much catnip to me, I'll admit. 

Spoiler

Another reason to resent Tara, I can't help it.

And Buffy's final, delayed, "Does Percy even go here?" is such a great capper. Well done, Dave, well done.

I can see the 6 (Riley being all "date me now!" still bugs, plus the "physics"), but I can't go there, quite.  7/10, at least.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

Missed opportunity to get rid of Spike actually. Due to Willow's and Xander's excessive kindness the blonde vamp survived and the gang paid a price for their shortsightedness in subsequent seasons

Since first watching this episode over 15 years ago one particular scene continues to bug me to this day. I mean, the conversation between W, X and Spike after leaving historical museum searching for the word of Valios:
 

Quote

Willow:  “Great.  No word of Valios.”
Xander:  “Not even a syllable of Valios.”
Spike:  “Which means I’m one step closer to melting in a sea of molten hellfire, yeah?”
Willow:  “You shouldn’t talk like that.  Yeah, okay, so you can’t kill anymore, but there are other fun things you can do.  You’ll adjust.”
Spike stops and turns around:  “Adjust?  And what?  End up like the two of you?  No thank you.”
Xander:  “Here it goes.  ‘We can’t jus leave him here to stake himself!  It’s not right.’”
Spike:  “I should think you would be glad to greet the end of days.  I mean, neither one of you is making much of a go at it. (Gestures at Xander)  You.  Kids your age are going off to University, you’ve made it as far as the basement.  And Red here, - you couldn’t even keep dog-boy happy.  You can take the loser out of high school, but...”
Willow:  “I see what you’re doing.  You’re trying to get us to dust you.”
Spike:  “Am not!  I just don’t want pity from geeks more useless than I am.”
Willow:  “We’re not useless!  We – we help people.  We fight the forces of evil!”
Spike:  “*Buffy* fights the forces of evil.  You’re her groupies.  She’d do just as well without you – better I’d wager, since she wouldn’t have to go about saving your hides all the time.”
Xander:  “That is no not true!  We’re part of the team.  She needs us.”
Spike:  “Or you’re just the same tenth grade losers you’ve always been, and she’s too much of a softy to cut you lose.”
Willow and Xander stand there speechless and after a moment Spike turns and walks on a satisfied grin spreading over his face.

I mean, since when do they take ANYTHING the smug bastard says seriously? They surely know the history of the Scooby Gang way better - including the obvious fact that Buffy wouldn't win a single major battle without little help from her friends. Therefore, no matter how insecure, immature or shy the are, they can easily laugh out loud in response to Spikey's BS. Or stake him. Or turn into frog by some of Willow's spells. It's amazing that those two try to argue with Spike and persuade the SOB that what he says is wrong... Tell him to STFU and that's it.

Overall I like some nostalgic feeling from the earlier high school days and the attempt to recreate the spirit of pre-Graduation Scooby Gang - the good old days, when there were just Buffy and her two slayerettes (and Giles, of course).

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎16‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 7:48 PM, Halting Hex said:

Thrown together by three writers over a weekend because Hush had them so far behind over the production schedule, I like this one way more than it arguably merits (WTF is wrong with Giles's voice in the B/G scene?  ASH sounds very badly looped) and it's one that I often turn to as comfort food.

In tribute, here's a little something to appreciate from all of those involved:

Aww.  Although I agree with Joe, Percy was just tapdancing because Laurie was (accurately) suspicious. It's just that Willow's overly sensitive right now. 

And, to be fair to Laurie, Willow really should have been more clear that there was nothing going on between her and Percy last year.  Will seemed just a shade territorial, IMO.

Still any scene that's all about Buffy comforting Willow is pretty much catnip to me, I'll admit. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Another reason to resent Tara, I can't help it.

And Buffy's final, delayed, "Does Percy even go here?" is such a great capper. Well done, Dave, well done.

I can see the 6 (Riley being all "date me now!" still bugs, plus the "physics"), but I can't go there, quite.  7/10, at least.

Nah, Percy never fancied Will, he just thinks of her as a strict fiery redhead wearing her 'gosh look at those' black leather outfit who slaps him around a bit, why would that appeal to anyone?

[Halting Hex]

Taking another look at this one, and I can't say I'm fond of Buffy trying to use "tales of this impending Apocalypse I might be making up" to distract Giles from his rather-accurate guesses about the Initiative.  Why are we back "Buffy tries to hide the truth about her boyfriend" mode, again?  It's not as if this is Beauty and the Beasts redux and she's worried that the Scoobs are going to stake Riley if his "secret" is exposed; the Spud works for the U.S. government, ffs.  He's human, he's one of the "good guys", stop prioritizing him over your friends, Buffy!  Grrr.

On the plus side, we do find out that Riley was not in town as of Prophecy Girl, since he refers to this being his first earthquake.  Which fits the script notes for The Initiative that refer to him as a junior (with Forrest a sophomore and Graham being a senior).

Spoiler

Riley's referring to himself as a "grad student" next year (Buffy vs. Dracula) is more problematic, unless he really studied hard to graduate early.  Or unless he got a brick-load of "life experience" credits for being in the Initiative, I suppose.

[lembergwatcher]

1 hour ago, Halting Hex said:

Taking another look at this one, and I can't say I'm fond of Buffy trying to use "tales of this impending Apocalypse I might be making up" to distract Giles from his rather-accurate guesses about the Initiative.  Why are we back "Buffy tries to hide the truth about her boyfriend" mode, again?  It's not as if this is Beauty and the Beasts redux and she's worried that the Scoobs are going to stake Riley if his "secret" is exposed; the Spud works for the U.S. government, ffs.  He's human, he's one of the "good guys", stop prioritizing him over your friends, Buffy!  Grrr.

On the plus side, we do find out that Riley was not in town as of Prophecy Girl, since he refers to this being his first earthquake.  Which fits the script notes for The Initiative that refer to him as a junior (with Forrest a sophomore and Graham being a senior).

  Hide contents

Riley's referring to himself as a "grad student" next year (Buffy vs. Dracula) is more problematic, unless he really studied hard to graduate early.  Or unless he got a brick-load of "life experience" credits for being in the Initiative, I suppose.

I have noticed this too. Maybe she doesn't want to piss off her Corn-fed Iowa Boy. Or maybe by then our Slayer had become some sort of pathological liar. Maybe it's in her character. Or she still expects different results after making the same mistake over and over and over again.

It will be sort of behavioral pattern for Buffy until the end of the series. Lies, lies, lies, big or small. I won't tell about the Key, coz Dawn will freak out and my friends will be acting strangely beside her. I won't tell about Heeeeeeaven or that Spike can abuse me. Eventually the truth will come to light in the worst possible time, in the worst possible way, but Buffy's just unable to learn from the mistakes

[lembergwatcher]

What really bugs me about this whole episode is not only Willow acting like Mother Theresa towards Spike, but the annoyingly cartoonish image of a guy, who had to work for a living. Is taking odd jobs considered inferior to going to college in the Whedonverse? Are working guys always look so uncool? Or college with constant partying is such a spiritual journey compared to the life of average working Joe?
 

Spoiler

The irony is that Xander, portrayed as a loser for not having a chance to enroll in the college, eventually becomes a foreman of the construction team. While we will never find out, how did years spent in college help Willow or Buffy to find their places in life.  What exactly did they study in UC Sunnydale anyway?

 

[lembergwatcher]

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎21‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 6:09 PM, Halting Hex said:

Taking another look at this one, and I can't say I'm fond of Buffy trying to use "tales of this impending Apocalypse I might be making up" to distract Giles from his rather-accurate guesses about the Initiative.  Why are we back "Buffy tries to hide the truth about her boyfriend" mode, again?  It's not as if this is Beauty and the Beasts redux and she's worried that the Scoobs are going to stake Riley if his "secret" is exposed; the Spud works for the U.S. government, ffs.  He's human, he's one of the "good guys", stop prioritizing him over your friends, Buffy!  Grrr.

On the plus side, we do find out that Riley was not in town as of Prophecy Girl, since he refers to this being his first earthquake.  Which fits the script notes for The Initiative that refer to him as a junior (with Forrest a sophomore and Graham being a senior).

  Hide contents

Riley's referring to himself as a "grad student" next year (Buffy vs. Dracula) is more problematic, unless he really studied hard to graduate early.  Or unless he got a brick-load of "life experience" credits for being in the Initiative, I suppose.

To judge by Riley's line in Buffy Vs Dracula about being in Sunnydale for a couple of years he'd been there since s3 although to judge by OOSOOM the Initiative may have been around from s1? 

On ‎25‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 11:55 PM, lembergwatcher said:

What really bugs me about this whole episode is not only Willow acting like Mother Theresa towards Spike, but the annoyingly cartoonish image of a guy, who had to work for a living. Is taking odd jobs considered inferior to going to college in the Whedonverse? Are working guys always look so uncool? Or college with constant partying is such a spiritual journey compared to the life of average working Joe?
 

  Hide contents

The irony is that Xander, portrayed as a loser for not having a chance to enroll in the college, eventually becomes a foreman of the construction team. While we will never find out, how did years spent in college help Willow or Buffy to find their places in life.  What exactly did they study in UC Sunnydale anyway?

 

That was the whole point, to show you didn't need to be college educated to be valuable. We know Buffy and Willow did psychology and Buffy did study poetry?

On ‎21‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 8:22 PM, lembergwatcher said:

I have noticed this too. Maybe she doesn't want to piss off her Corn-fed Iowa Boy. Or maybe by then our Slayer had become some sort of pathological liar. Maybe it's in her character. Or she still expects different results after making the same mistake over and over and over again.

  Hide contents

It will be sort of behavioral pattern for Buffy until the end of the series. Lies, lies, lies, big or small. I won't tell about the Key, coz Dawn will freak out and my friends will be acting strangely beside her. I won't tell about Heeeeeeaven or that Spike can abuse me. Eventually the truth will come to light in the worst possible time, in the worst possible way, but Buffy's just unable to learn from the mistakes

But all the Scoobs do that, it's purely human nature. 

[Halting Hex]

Or it's the nature of being a character in a TV show, where "revelations' are dragged out for plot purposes. 

We see the Scoobs take various classes, both now and in future seasons,

Spoiler

but we never learn what they're majoring in, as none of them end up graduating.

[illdoc]

Willow probably majored in Computer Science, given her aptitude for computers. 

[Halting Hex]

Spoiler

We never see her take a science class (just Maggie's psychology class and Prof. Mike's sociology unit in Life Serial and having a discussion post-literature class in Crush, plus she and Buffy are apparently taking European History together, to judge from the discussions in Out of My Mind and Listening to Fear ), but when she fibs  to Buffy about where she was when she was floating roses with Tara in A New Man, she claims to have been in the Science Library, so she must still be studying something at least somewhat science-y, I'd guess.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Halting Hex

[illdoc]

Also remember, Willow & Buffy are freshman during Season 4---it's not unusual to be taking "non-major" related classes during your first two years. At the college I went to (majoring in both math and computer science), you needed 124 credit hours to graduate. If you just took the classes required for your major, that'd give you about 50-60. I also had to take an English class, 2 social science (mine were Psych & Sociology), 3 humanities (Early History, Intro to Knowledge & Existence (philosophy), and something else), 2 science including a lab (Physics and Geology), a communications course, and a "special" course (mine was consumer education). I also took (as electives) Logic, Criminology, and Classical Mythology! 

[Joe Hellandback]

12 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Or it's the nature of being a character in a TV show, where "revelations' are dragged out for plot purposes. 

We see the Scoobs take various classes, both now and in future seasons,

  Hide contents

but we never learn what they're majoring in, as none of them end up graduating.

But she also takes English (discussing The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and philosophy (she takes Buffy to her class with her professor) 

[lembergwatcher]

Everytime I watch bored Willow at the party scene and hear "Buffy, where are you?", I recall the little boy at the playground and his "C'mon, Mom. She's always late" from the prologue to Lie to Me.  You can graduate from high school, enter college and date guitarist, yet still remain a small naive child deep inside. And that "inner child" was cute and touching in case with Willow. Unlike Buffy who was once told to spank her "inner moppet".

Spoiler

And unlike Dawnie, whose childish outbursts were rather annoying and made her look like a spoiled brat sometimes.

[Halting Hex]

So I was doing some Buffy/Riley chronology in the Family thread, and I recalled that Hush is set in early December (Riley's "late papers" excuse when Buffy reminds him that the final exam is coming shortly) and this one follows immediately from that, as the B/R "we have to talk" conversation continues from one episode to another.

So this means that Spike's "for the sake of puppies…and Christmas" declaration is actually seasonal, as the holiday is still approaching, even though the episode aired in January.  So there's more time between this and A New Man (Buffy's birthday, January 20th) than there first appears to be.

[lembergwatcher]

Well, the chronology is right, but Buffy's b-day was January 19th I guess...

[Halting Hex]

No, the events of Surprise/Innocence take place across four consecutive school days, so either Monday-Thursday or Tuesday-Friday, and since Joyce talks about going to the mall "on Saturday" at the end of the two-parter, it's reasonable to assume this is Thursday night, not Friday.  Buffy's birthday was on the second day of the four, which was thus Tuesday, and on the relevant week in 1998, the 20th.

I understand that some people consider January 20th to be the first day of Aquarius rather than the last, cuspy, day of Capricorn, but we had two writers in the fanfic group I used to run who had that day as their birthday, and even they couldn't agree on this.  So, as the other evidence inclines me to the 20th, I class Buffy as being born on Inauguration Day, rather than Robert E. Lee's birthday.  But JMO.

[lembergwatcher]

I must say that Willow's outfit in Doomed is one of my favorites.

[Halting Hex]

No wonder Anya isn't in the episode!  She must have seen that shirt and ran!

[lembergwatcher]

7 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

No wonder Anya isn't in the episode!

One more reason for me to like this ep.

[Joe Hellandback]

10 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

I must say that Willow's outfit in Doomed is one of my favorites.

My favourite Willow outfit is her 'renaissance fair' dress from OMWF.

[Halting Hex]

My favorite unspoiled podcaster likes this episode, but just doesn't understand why the Scoobs think they have to let Spike hang around with them.  "Why don't they just tell him to get lost?" he asks.  His spoiled partner says that Spike is too dangerous to be walking around free…but I think we can all see the flaw there, then.  There's just no narrative reason to have Spike in the show, and either he's too dangerous to exile, or too harmless to kill, but he can't be both.  Frustrating.

My podcaster is also starting to wonder what Giles is doing on the show any longer, given that he's no longer even useful for exposition.  Next episode may prove interesting, then.

[lembergwatcher]

14 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

My podcaster is also starting to wonder what Giles is doing on the show any longer

Still pretending to be Buffy's daddy figure and Willow's mentor. Plus annoying the shit out of me. I think season 4 was the best opportutnity for the writers to turn ol' G-Man into the series' real comic relief.

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎22‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 4:05 AM, Halting Hex said:

My favorite unspoiled podcaster likes this episode, but just doesn't understand why the Scoobs think they have to let Spike hang around with them.  "Why don't they just tell him to get lost?" he asks.  His spoiled partner says that Spike is too dangerous to be walking around free…but I think we can all see the flaw there, then.  There's just no narrative reason to have Spike in the show, and either he's too dangerous to exile, or too harmless to kill, but he can't be both.  Frustrating.

My podcaster is also starting to wonder what Giles is doing on the show any longer, given that he's no longer even useful for exposition.  Next episode may prove interesting, then.

Unless they kill him how would they drive him away? 

[Halting Hex]

Just throw his ass out; it's not as though Spike can fight back, after all.

And they might want to haul out the disinvite spell so he can't come back, while they're at it.

Spoiler

Now, that I think of it, it rather beggars belief that Spike can just casually waltz into Giles's place in The Yoko Factor, when it's been ten episodes since he's lived there and he doesn't even live at Xander's any more.  Is he still welcome in Buffy's dorm room, too?  Sloppy, people, sloppy.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

15 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Just throw his ass out; it's not as though Spike can fight back, after all.

And they might want to haul out the disinvite spell so he can't come back, while they're at it.

  Hide contents

Now, that I think of it, it rather beggars belief that Spike can just casually waltz into Giles's place in The Yoko Factor, when it's been ten episodes since he's lived there and he doesn't even live at Xander's any more.  Is he still welcome in Buffy's dorm room, too?  Sloppy, people, sloppy.

Then again Spike is sometimes useful as hired muscle and an informant?

[lembergwatcher]

One of the reasons I despise Spike

Spoiler

and Anya throughout fourth season

is ruining those very few lovely Xillow moments...

 

[Halting Hex]

I loathe Spike, too, obviously…but I have a very difficult time seeing their bemusement at (and ultimately frustration of) the newly-minted Peroxide Crusader's jones for "action" as being in anyway "ruined".  Perfectly adorable = perfectly perfect, IMO.

(And if it makes you feel any better, just imagine that Xander cleared his throat meaningfully a couple of times, and Spike eventually caught the clue and cleared out to "patrol" on his own. Leaving X/W to wonder exactly where Anya got off to [Tara's barely an acquaintance to Willow as yet, and Xander doesn't know she exists]…and deciding that they don't particularly care.  

Better?)

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎25‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 3:25 PM, lembergwatcher said:

One of the reasons I despise Spike

  Hide contents

and Anya throughout fourth season

is ruining those very few lovely Xillow moments...

 

Yeah that was a nice Xillow moment, also shows Spike is right about them. 

[Halting Hex]

How so?  Trying to enjoy a pleasant evening rather than seeking out random violence hardly condemns the two of them as "tenth-grade losers", I'd rather strongly dispute.

They're happy; he's not too far away from a suicide attempt.  Can't see any reason to believe him, here.

[lembergwatcher]

20 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Spike is right about them

Spike is always full of shit. Thus I don't consider him to be a good judge of character - at least in W/X case.

[Joe Hellandback]

21 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

How so?  Trying to enjoy a pleasant evening rather than seeking out random violence hardly condemns the two of them as "tenth-grade losers", I'd rather strongly dispute.

They're happy; he's not too far away from a suicide attempt.  Can't see any reason to believe him, here.

But they're still to an extent the people they were in high-school, but that's okay. 

[Halting Hex]

On 9/17/2018 at 3:40 AM, Halting Hex said:

So I was doing some Buffy/Riley chronology in the Family thread, and I recalled that Hush is set in early December (Riley's "late papers" excuse when Buffy reminds him that the final exam is coming shortly) and this one follows immediately from that, as the B/R "we have to talk" conversation continues from one episode to another.

So this means that Spike's "for the sake of puppies…and Christmas" declaration is actually seasonal, as the holiday is still approaching, even though the episode aired in January.  So there's more time between this and A New Man (Buffy's birthday, January 20th) than there first appears to be.

But wait a second…if this is still early December and we haven't had the finals for Maggie's psych class yet, then Riley's macking on one of his students here!  Show some professionalism, Spud!

Seems as if Riley has less to worry about from his superiors in the Initiative and more from UCSD's HR department.  Do you need to watch the anti-fraternization video again, Mr. Finn?

Edited May 13, 2020 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

3 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

But wait a second…if this is still early December and we haven't had the finals for Maggie's psych class yet, then Riley's macking on one of his students here!  Show some professionalism, Spud!

Seems like Riley has less to worry from his superiors in the Initiative and more from UCSD's HR department.  Do you need to watch the anti-fraternization video again, Mr. Finn?

Given the show's love of unconventional relationships (I miss that website) it would barely raise a flicker. 

[lembergwatcher]

Quote

Willow:  “What were you doing?”
Xander:  “You were trying to stake yourself!”
Spike:  “Fag off! - It’s no concern of yours.”
Xander:  “Is, too.  For one thing that’s my shirt you’re about to dust.  For another, we’ve shared a lot here.  You should have trusted me enough to do it for you.”
Willow:  “Xander!”
Xander:  “What?  He wants to die, I want to help.”
Willow:  “It’s ooky.  We know him, we can’t just let him poof himself!”

Generally I like this episode. Notably for Scooby action, some Xillow moments and absense of Anya. But OTOH I don't understand why should Willow of all people be so protective of her attempted rapist/murderer? Are assault victims always so concerned for the assailant's well-being? I guess Xander is not the only one having gross emotional problems...

Does Joss think it's "funny" or whatever? Or does the mere fact that Spike didn't succeed in Initiative somehow nullify the wrongness that was commited? Why is Spike sooo special he can get away with 

Spoiler

two

rape attempts? Besides, the whole "Spike is chipped and therefore "harmless" like a kitten" concept is too stupid even by Buffyversal standards.

[Halting Hex]

3 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Willow:  “It’s ooky.  We know him,

Er, Will…you "know" Spike because he was marching up and down the halls of SHS, declaring that he was going to kill you and Cordelia if he found you.

And then you got to know him better when he assaulted you and kidnapped you and threatened to shove a bottle through your face.  (And implied the possibility of rape, or so you thought.  ["There will be no 'having' of any kind."]) You thought you and Xander were going to die, remember?  

(Which did lead to "imminent-death exception" smoochies, but still.)

And then he tried to murder, vampirize, and possibly rape you, "performance" issues aside.  Given that you eventually hit him with a lamp, probably not a fond reminisce there, either.

Perhaps it's time to wonder what you're getting out of this "relationship", don't you think?

Edited June 18, 2020 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

Hey, where would Luke Skywalker be if he'd cut down Darth Vader when he had the chance?

[lembergwatcher]

So Percy West attends USC on a football scholarship... Is it solely because they don't have one at UC Sunnydale?

I always wondered why wasn't there any swimming scholarships at UC Sunnydale so, say, Xander too had a chance of enrolling?.. I can believe in many different things but I will never ever accept that Xander was dumber than all the Percy Wests of the world.

It's kinda sad that Willow had time to tutor Percy (albeit forced to do so by Snyder), who was literally nobody as far as she was concerned, but apparently didn't even consider helping Xander, her supposed best bud, with his grades. He  couldn't have been too dumb, after all. Was it because the guy seemed not "cool" enough for freaking college?..

Was keeping Xander away from college life really that crucial for the series plot? The "it was needed to show the Scoobies estrangement from one another as one of the season's key topics" excuse doesn't work here IMO since Scoobies started drifting apart (i. e. Buffy and Willow started emotionally distancing themselves from Xander for some strange reasons) long before graduation. Besides, 

Spoiler

there was a rift between Willow and Buffy later in the season even though the two of them shared the same dorm room together...

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

On 4/24/2022 at 11:55 AM, lembergwatcher said:

So Percy West attends USC on a football scholarship... Is it solely because they don't have one at UC Sunnydale?

Well, university-level athletics in the US are organized on a tiered-system;  Percy might well have wanted to have the national-television exposure and championship opportunities at a storied program such as USC rather than toiling in the obscurity of Division III at UC-Hellmouth.  

Or he might simply have wanted to move away.  Plenty of students enjoy going someplace other than the same town they're bored with, even without all the demons and vampires.  (Which, you'll recall, Graduation Day Part 2 shows that Percy is now aware of.)  Fighting them is Buffy's responsibility, not his.  He did his part, and then chose to de-part.

On 4/24/2022 at 11:55 AM, lembergwatcher said:

Was keeping Xander away from college life really that crucial for the series plot?

That could be a function of the initial idea to have Xander join the Initiative.  That way, the division within the Scoobs would be highlighted as never before, and any conflicts that might arise between our gang and Walsh's crew wouldn't seem like pale rehashes of Angel's vampire issues.  (Since Riley being loyal to the military and Angel being a [sometime-repentant] mass-murderer are hardly that closely akin.)

Honestly, I think a civilian boyfriend would work better for Buffy at this point.  If the fans wanted to see Buffy with a "powerful fighter" , they'll likely stay loyal to the guy whose show is on right after this.  A new type of relationship wouldn't be as direct a comparison to Bangel.  Let Xander be the guy with the big guns.  He certainly has form for it, going back to Innocence.

(I mean, if all you're going to do is try to copy Buffy/Angel, you might as well listen to the fringies who want her to hook up with Spike.  And we just spent a whole episode recently showing how ridiculous that would be.)

[lembergwatcher]

1 hour ago, Halting Hex said:

That could be a function of the initial idea to have Xander join the Initiative.

They wanted Xander to join the Initiative?? 

Between making Xander one of Maggie's henchmen or directionless Anya's fucktoy I'd say they should've chosen the former... 

[Halting Hex]

Yeah, that was the whole idea.  Left-behind townie joins the military, becomes successful due to experience (not to mention Hallowe'en-residual knowledge) and ends up with divided loyalties between Buffy and his career.  Not sure if this was also meant to be an impetus to a Buffy/Xander romance, or if the two ideas were separate.

As it is, we've got Riley in both of those slots.  (Well, not actually in Buffy's slot…or he probably would have turned evil, like Angel and Parker before him.)  So if Xander's going to give up either lousy jobs or Anya, that will have to happen down the line.

[Halting Hex]

BTW, this episode is getting a lot of workouts in my FUSE archive, even though it's one of two where the decision to eliminate any ad-breaks between the episodes cuts off a black-out screen final line.  (Spike's "Oh, come on!" has gone the way of Buffy's "Liar" that ends Lie to Me.  It's cool, I still have the eps on tape/DVD/computer, not to mention being reviewed by various reactors.) But despite that tiny trim (I've also lost all the different iterations of the Mutant Enemy monster), it's still my season 4 comfort food.

A large part of that, of course, is the Buffy-comforting-Willow scene I kvelled about upthread.  And so, with repeated viewings, I noticed a little bit of excellence by SMG:  after the "Percy said you were a nerd?" bit and Willow saying they need to find Giles, when the girls stand up, Sarah gives a little sigh.  Which fits not only because Buffy's sad that Willow was traumatized but because Buffy is tired of all this…this is literally the next night after Hush, after all.

Well done, Smidge.