S05.E20: Spiral

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; Buffy fighting medieval knights on top of a mobile home. Again you never get this on Dawson's Creek!

The Bad; Once again the budget can't really keep up with the concept. Also you can see it's a dummy when Buffy carries 'Dawn' (as indeed it is in many scenes at the end of Aliens because Sigourney had hurt her back)

Best line; Xander; "We got company and they brought a crusade!"

Jeez!; The scene between Dawn and Buffy in the camper van really brings home to you how much her life can 'Suck beyond the telling of it'.

Kinky dinky; The female minion fancies Ben. Shouldn't she fancy other 'hobbits with leprosy'?

Captain Subtext; Xander helps Spike light his cigarette. Dawn observes that Glory has 'nice feet'. Ben observes terrible things happen to good people. Well,

Spoiler

they're certainly going to happen to him.

Guantanamo Bay; Gregor captured and occasionally hit by the Scoobs.

Scoobies to the ER; Giles speared. Spike's hands cut.

Apocalypses; 5,

Scoobies in bondage: Dawn tied up Buffy: 8 Giles: 4 Cordy: 5 Will: 3 Jenny: 1 Angel: 4 Oz: 1 Faith: 3 Joyce: 1 Wes: 1 Xander; 1 Dawn; 2

Scoobies knocked out: Buffy: 16 Giles: 10 Cordy: 6 Xander: 8 Will: 5 Jenny: 2 Angel: 6 Oz: 3 Faith: 1 Joyce: 3 Wes: 1 Anya;1

Kills: Buffy kills at least one knight Buffy: 95 vamps, 32 demons, 6 monsters, 4 humans, 1 werewolf, 1 spirit warrior & a robot Giles: 5 vamps, 1 demon Cordy: 3 vamps, a demon Will: 6 vamps Angel: 3 vamps, 1 demon, 1 human Oz: 3 vamps, 1 zombie Faith: 16 vamps, 5 demons, 3 humans Xander: 5 vamps, 2 zombies, a demon, a demon Anya: 1 vamp and a demon Riley; 18 vamps + 7 demons Buffybot; 1 vamp Spike; 1 vamp and 1 demon

Scoobies go evil: Giles: 1 Cordy: 1 Will: 2 Jenny: 1 Angel: 1 Oz: 1 Joyce: 1 Xander: 3

Alternate scoobies:

Buffy: 6 Giles: 3 Cordy: 1 Will: 2 Jenny: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 2 Joyce: 2 Xander: 3

Recurring characters killed: 9 Jesse, Flutie, Jenny, Kendra, Larry, Snyder, Professor Walsh, Forrest, McNamara, Joyce

Sunnydale deaths; 89;

Total number of scoobies: 7 from now on Spike an intrinsic part of the group Giles, Xander, Willow, Buffy, Anya, Tara, Spike

Xander demon magnet: 5(6?) Preying Mantis Lady, Inca Mummy Girl, Drusilla, VampWillow, Anya (arguably Buffy & Faith with their demon essences?), Dracula?

Scoobies shot: Giles: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 4 Riley; 1

Notches on Scooby bedpost: Giles: 2; Joyce & Olivia, possibly Jenny and 3xDraccy babes? Cordy: 1? Buffy: 3 confirmed; Angel, Parker,Riley, 1 possible, Dracula(?) Angel: 1;Buffy Joyce: 1;Giles, 2 possible, Ted and Dracula(?) Oz: 3; Groupie, Willow & Verucca Faith:2 ;Xander, Riley Xander: 2; Faith, Anya Willow: 2;Oz and Tara Riley; 3; Buffy, Sandy and unnamed vampwhore

Questions and observations; Willow seems to have got over her fear of horses and now doesn't want Buffy to hurt them. Xander doesn't travel well. Anya knows this but you wonder how? I for one agree with Buffy's strategy, they can't fight Glory, Tara's already been hurt, time to get the hell out of dodge! The knights actually seem pretty good guys if they weren't trying to kill Dawn, all they want to do is stop Glory which seems a reasonable idea. But they should have taken Mr Trick's advice and got some Uzis. Of course Gregor is played by the same actor who murdered Tru's mother in Eliza Dushku's show Tru Calling (Riley's friend Forrest also guest starring as did Clare Kramer and Cobie Smulders, the girl who plays Robin on Alysson Hannigan's show How I Met Your Mother and in Joss' Avengers). Gregor actually plays the part of Basil Exposition pretty well, Glory knows him so he's survived an encounter with her before. The camper van with the windows blocked out reminds me of the excellent Kathryn Bigelow vampire film Near Dark. Poor Buffy, it really does just keep coming and coming. Why does Ben come to the Scoobs if he knows he's a threat to Dawn? Note both Summers girls have their darkside. Why don't they go to The Council or Angel Investigations for help?

Marks out of 10; 8/10 for the chase sequence alone

[Loandbehold]

General Rule of Thumb: Sword fights are always cool.

9 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

est line; Xander; "We got company and they brought a crusade!"

That's a pretty good one, but I prefer Willow and Buffy:

WILLOW: Don't hit the horsies!
BUFFY: Oh, we won't!

Buffy moves up next to Giles.

BUFFY: Aim for the horsies.

I love how Buffy says "horsies" even as she's advocating running them over w/ a Winnebago.

Also, Glory's comment:

GLORY: Hey, it's Gregor.

She grabs a hubcap that's hanging nearby and throws it like a Frisbee. It flies into the general's chest. Everyone stares. Gregor falls forward against his bonds, dead.

GLORY: Now it's not.

Reminds me of Buffy throwing the sword at the Watcher who began interrupting her (see above, swords = cool).

Quote

Ben observes terrible things happen to good people. Well,

 

Spoiler

they're certainly going to happen to him.

 

Spoiler

Is Ben really still a "good person" at that point? He turns Dawn over to Glory in the hope that Glory will let him live, although he has no idea if she will actually do so, or even if she can do it. He's basically like Ford in that he had a choice - not a good choice, but he had a choice.

Quote

The camper van with the windows blocked out reminds me of the excellent Kathryn Bigelow vampire film Near Dark.

White trash vampires! Excellent and quite under-rated movie.

[Joe Hellandback]

5 hours ago, Loandbehold said:

General Rule of Thumb: Sword fights are always cool.

That's a pretty good one, but I prefer Willow and Buffy:

WILLOW: Don't hit the horsies!
BUFFY: Oh, we won't!

Buffy moves up next to Giles.

BUFFY: Aim for the horsies.

I love how Buffy says "horsies" even as she's advocating running them over w/ a Winnebago.

Also, Glory's comment:

GLORY: Hey, it's Gregor.

She grabs a hubcap that's hanging nearby and throws it like a Frisbee. It flies into the general's chest. Everyone stares. Gregor falls forward against his bonds, dead.

GLORY: Now it's not.

Reminds me of Buffy throwing the sword at the Watcher who began interrupting her (see above, swords = cool).

  Hide contents

Is Ben really still a "good person" at that point? He turns Dawn over to Glory in the hope that Glory will let him live, although he has no idea if she will actually do so, or even if she can do it. He's basically like Ford in that he had a choice - not a good choice, but he had a choice.

White trash vampires! Excellent and quite under-rated movie.

We'll talk about Ben's morality in a couple of eps. Yeah, Near Dark is great and lovely to see Adrian Pasdar on AoS, you should watch 

 

Plus the Off the Shelf boys of course

[Halting Hex]

Hardly a top episode (it's what made David Hines quit reviewing the series), but at least Smidge and Nicky took a moment to chill with acting history:

Jack Donner (Glory's Cleric), the only actor to guest-star on both the original Star Trek and BtVS.  RIP, Jack (1928-2019).