S06.E17: Normal Again

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; Some great acting from SMG, lovely to see Kristine/Joyce again. Also I really like the idea of Tara to the rescue, so lovely that she get's to play the hero for once.

The Bad; Nothing bad, just a depressing ep

Best line; Spike; "You didn't say it was a Glarg gul cashmanik demon!" Xander; "Because I can't pronounce Glarg gul..."

Captain Subtext; Will sees Tara smooching with another girl but it might be just platonic. Spike uses the term poof of Xander. Also see Missing Scenes. Buffy says that once you fall for Willow you stay fallen.

Guantanamo Bay; Rather ruthless that Xander just wants to go down to the basement and execute the demon

Missing scenes; (reputedly) BUFFY: "I could wrestle naked in oil for a living and still be cleaner than after a shift at the Doublemeat". WILLOW: "Plus I'd come to visit you every single day".

Dawn in peril; 9 yes but in fairness the same as everyone else. She seems pretty resourceful both against evil-Buffy and the demon in the basement.

What the fanficcers thought; Obviously a lot of fic in this regard but I have 3 favourites. In one Buffy wakes up as an old woman in the asylum and promptly chucks herself out the window. The paramedics wonder why this dead old lady has such a smile on her face whilst back in the Buffyverse Dawn wakes Buffy up to join her friends for breakfast. Number 2 also has the same premise but in this one old Buffy turns her delusion into a series of bestselling novels/TV series and uses the money to start an orphanage called Sunnydale, naming all the kids after the Scoobies and her parents. Best of all though is 'No Place Like Home' which has Buffy awakening from her delusion just after the end of Chosen, still only 23 in the real world. She returns to her normal life with her old friends from Hemery High (who are all still alive as the deaths in the movie/Lie to Me never happened) but convinces a pregnant Joyce to call her new daughter Dawn.

Questions and observations; Actually for once it's Dawn who strokes Buffy's hair (and Joyce does the same thing to asylum Buffy). Buffy acknowledges for the first time that Dawn is taller. No Anya at all for the first time in 2 seasons. If you want to know how Buffy fared during her time in the asylum you can find it in the original Buffy comics (the fifty or so published whilst the show was still on air rather than the current post-Chosen/season 8 series). Although perhaps more fun is the story of Dawn and Hoopy Bear that occurred whilst Buffy was away.

There are probably about a thousand reasons why the premise of Normal Again (that Sunnydale is the delusion of Buffy who's a mad girl in an asylum) can't be true but here are just a few that occur to me off the top of my head;

1. How does stuff happen in the Buffyverse that Buffy never knows about? Giles' questions about her killing Angel, Xander's 'Kick his ass' comment in Becoming pt2, all of Angel;TS but especially 'I will remember you'? And notice we only ever see the asylum from Buffy's point of view, she's in every scene.

2. How can Hank, Joyce and Ford exist in both Buffy's delusion and the 'real world'?

3. Why is Buffy's delusion in Sunnydale not happier than real life? Surely her delusion is supposed to be an escape?

4. The asylum can't be Buffy's ideal if it doesn't have Dawn in it

5. How can Buffy be aware of current events (Tom and Nicole, Gatorade's new flavour, Star Trek; Enterprise) if she's a mad girl in the asylum?

6. If Buffy had a momentary awakening when she was dead why doesn't she remember it? The asylum is far from heaven.

7. What about when Buffy runs away from her calling after the end of season 2? She's a normal girl in the real world and also in her delusion?

8. How can Buffy be in a fugue state in Weight of the World within her delusion? And how exactly can she be inside Faith's dreams in 'This Year's Girl'?

On the other hand...?

Spoiler

The final scene on Buffy has Sunnydale destroyed, the Hellmouth sealed forever, literally and figuratively defeating her demons and HERSELF in the shape of the First Evil, the Slayer's work done. Faith tells Buffy that from now on she's going to have to live as a normal person. Dawn wonders what Buffy is going to do now? Buffy smiles her enigmatic little smile...and wakes up in the asylum, her sanity restored. She resumes her normal life, still only 23, all her friends who died in the film still alive as indeed is Joyce who is still together with Hank. She becomes a successful author of supernatural stories based on her delusion which are turned into movies and a TV series. And calls her children (and Joyce and Hanks beloved grandchildren) Dawn, Willow, Rupert, Faith and Alexander.

Third explanation of course, both are true, asylum Buffy and Sunnydale Buffy are both real in their alternate realities and have some sort of subconscious link. Post-Chosen asylum Buffy regains her sanity after 7 years, still only 23 and enjoys her normal life once more (because with thousands of Slayers to share the burden Sunnydale Buffy can also now lead a fairly ordinary life) but the season 8 comics are her dreams/successful literary creations which are the reality for Sunnydale Buffy.

Marks out of 10; 6/10 clever but not much fun

[Halting Hex]

Brilliant work, easily the best episode of the DawnVerse, and the only thing worth saving from the trainwreck that was UPN.  Far better than the Emmy™-begging "Joss specials", although Joss may have helped out, since Diego Gutierrez was his assistant and it seems unlikely he'd hit such a home run his first time out, unassisted.  Only truly obnoxious part is the "I was in an asylum" retcon, and of course you can just blame that on the Monks of Mindfuck messing with Buffy's memories.

No Anya, virtually no Tara (doesn't interact with the main cast until late Act IV and promptly gets knocked unconscious), and Spike buggers off before the halfway point. (And Xander nearly beats the crap out of him before Buffy collapses and spoils the fun.) Just the Three Musketeers and their charge/baggage, Dawnie.  Who gets terrorized, chased, kayoed and has her screechy mouth duct-taped. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. :D

Willow shows great strength and resolve, not giving in and sacrificing her sobriety by doing magic, even though the Scoobs are in peril, even though she can't count on Buffy to save them because Buffy's the one trying to kill them.  And Xander is equally heroic, fighting free with his hands tied around the post.  And of course Buffy does eventually make the Hero's Choice, sacrificing the safety and comfort of the Asylumverse to embrace her real life, and rising (literally) to reclaim her friends, her life and her destiny.  We even get a Power Shot;  there was a five-week break after this one, and I was not only convinced I had my show back

Spoiler

(boy, was I stupid, or what?)

, but I was hoping they'd redo the credits and swap out the shot of BuffyBot at the end for the Power Shot here.  Since the 'Botty shot had been appropriate for a season where the real Buffy had been essentially absent, but now she was back…or so I hoped.

My thought on the AsylumVerse is that it is real, but it's an alternate dimension, and that Buffy's been suffering because she's been getting psychic feedback from our Buffy, just as Buffy sometimes gets the Slayer dreams.  

Spoiler

Essentially, she's Dana, linked to a psychic connection she can't break and it's driving her crazy.

And whatever "momentary awakening" she had last summer was because Buffy was in her "warm and finished" sensory-deprivation dimension (presumably not "Heeeeeeeeeaven", since she was completely alone there; perhaps "the ether" where vampire-displaced souls wait to be summoned, as referred to in Passion), and therefore Asylum!Buffy wasn't getting any interference from our Buffy, for the first time in years and years.  And when Buffy makes the decision to return to our world at the end, it leaves Asylum!Buffy glazed and unconscious, since it was bad enough to be getting flashes of Buffy's mind, but now she'd had it totally invade hers, due to the Glark'Gul'Kashmanik's poison…but she might recover a bit as time goes on.

CALLING CAPTAIN SUBTEXT (what, you leave out that section on this of all episodes, Joe? Don't worry, I've got you…):  the Wiffy-est episode in a good long time, not only for the missing "wrestle in oil" exchange (no "reputed" about it, just check the script), but for the aired "once you fall for Willow, you stay fallen."  Buffy Summers, staying fallen since 1997 :)

And note also Asylum!Buffy's reactions when the Scoobs are fighting for their lives in the basement.  Xander gets a quiet "Xander!".  Dawn gets nothing.  (That's right, Shiny-Hair! You can try to steal Willow's place in the subtext, but Buffy knows her heart! Ahem…) But put Her Willow in danger, and Buffy starts wailing, banging her head against the wall, and eventually taking up her Destiny again.  Just as she did when she threw away her "no slaying" vow for Willow in the pilot. Just as she did when she died for Willow's sake in Prophecy Girl.  Now that's subtext, Dawnie. Deal with it.

There was a game we used to play on TWoP (and later took elsewhere, when that board temporarily purged all game threads) that involved listing a series of quotes to identify (speaker, speakee, episode) and then either using those lines or ones adjacent to them in the text ("contextual", we called it) to match up with the various lines that made up a scene from an episode, or other such "theme".  (Why, yes…it was that complicated.)  One of my favorite compositions was the final Buffy/Joyce scene here, where I would cue Joyce's lines to Buffy by using something similar that Buffy had said to her, or some such. Lots of fun.

Marks: 9/10, because 10s should be hard to come by.  And because there's no guarantee the show won't backslide like Buffy without the antidote, after all.  But still, it was a happy five weeks.

Spoiler

I even wrote an essay about how "Believe in yourself" (Joyce's key line to Asylum!Buffy) was the Moral of the Season, just like "I don't want to die" in S1 or "Love makes you do the wacky" in S2.  Wow, was I stupid or what?

But at least it was a happy stupid.  The next year, the five-week spring break came after Lies My Parents Told Me, and I spent that one imagining creative ways for Robin Wood to torture Buffy to death.  (There's one that involves a welder's torch and…) So let me have my happy fun time, okay?

Edited November 5, 2018 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

7 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Buffy Summers, staying fallen since 1997 :)

Oh come on :) In the UPN era Willow had to be undead to be of any interest to Buffy. OTOH I won't be surprised if Buffy had secret dreams about creating some sort of family with Spike and Willow. Dawn and Giles would probably have a place as well. Just one happy family, you know :)

While watchin' the ep for the very first time I was waiting for some, well, kinky stuff between mad Buffy and her tied up and helpless Slayerettes in the basement. Unfortunately it didn't come that far.  

Edited October 31, 2018 by lembergwatcher

[Joe Hellandback]

20 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Brilliant work, easily the best episode of the DawnVerse, and the only thing worth saving from the trainwreck that was UPN.  Far better than the Emmy™-begging "Joss specials", although Joss may have helped out, since Diego Gutierrez was his assistant and it seems unlikely he'd hit such a home run his first time out, unassisted.  Only truly obnoxious part is the "I was in an asylum" retcon, and of course you can just blame that on the Monks of Mindfuck messing with Buffy's memories.

No Anya, virtually no Tara (doesn't interact with the main cast until late Act IV and promptly gets knocked unconscious), and Spike buggers off before the halfway point. (And Xander nearly beats the crap out of him before Buffy collapses and spoils the fun.) Just the Three Musketeers and their charge/baggage, Dawnie.  Who gets terrorized, chased, kayoed and has her screechy mouth duct-taped. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. :D

Willow shows great strength and resolve, not giving in and sacrificing her sobriety by doing magic, even though the Scoobs are in peril, even though she can't count on Buffy to save them because Buffy's the one trying to kill them.  And Xander is equally heroic, fighting free with his hands tied around the post.  And of course Buffy does eventually make the Heroes' Choice, sacrificing the safety and comfort of the Asylumverse to embrace her real life, and rising (literally) to reclaim her friends, her life and her destiny.  We even get a Power Shot;  there was a five-week break after this one, and I was not only convinced I had my show back

  Reveal hidden contents

(boy, was I stupid, or what?)

, but I was hoping they'd redo the credits and swap out the shot of BuffyBot at the end for the Power Shot here.  Since the 'Botty shot had been appropriate for a season where the real Buffy had been essentially absent, but now she was back…or so I hoped.

My thought on the AsylumVerse is that it is real, but it's an alternate dimension, and that Buffy's been suffering because she's been getting psychic feedback from our Buffy, just as Buffy sometimes gets the Slayer dreams.  

  Reveal hidden contents

Essentially, she's Dana, linked to a psychic connection she can't break and it's driving her crazy.

And whatever "momentary awakening" she had last summer was because Buffy was in her "warm and finished" sensory-deprivation dimension (presumably not "Heeeeeeeeeaven", since she was completely alone there; perhaps "the ether" where vampire-displaced souls wait to be summoned, as referred to in Passion), and therefore Asylum!Buffy wasn't getting any interference from our Buffy, for the first time in years and years.  And when Buffy makes the decision to return to our world at the end, it leaves Asylum!Buffy glazed and unconscious, since it was bad enough to be getting flashes of Buffy's mind, but now she'd had it totally invade hers, due to the Glark'Gul'Kashmanik's poison…but she might recover a bit as time goes on.

CALLING CAPTAIN SUBTEXT (what, you leave out that section on this of all episodes, Joe? Don't worry, I've got you…):  the Wiffy-est episode in a good long time, not only for the missing "wrestle in oil" exchange (no "reputed" about it, just check the script), but for the aired "once you fall for Willow, you stay fallen."  Buffy Summers, staying fallen since 1997 :)

And note also Asylum!Buffy's reactions when the Scoobs are fighting for their lives in the basement.  Xander gets a quiet "Xander!".  Dawn gets nothing.  (That's right, Shiny-Hair! You can try to steal Willow's place in the subtext, but Buffy knows her heart! Ahem…) But put Her Willow in danger, and Buffy starts wailing, banging her head against the wall, and eventually taking up her Destiny again.  Just as she did when she threw away her "no slaying" vow for Willow in the pilot. Just as she did when she died for Willow's sake in Prophecy Girl.  Now that's subtext, Dawnie. Deal with it.

There was a game we used to play on TWoP (and later took elsewhere, when that board temporarily purged all game threads) that involved listing a series of quotes to identify (speaker, speakee, episode) and then either using those lines or ones adjacent to them in the text ("contextual", we called it) to match up with the various lines that made up a scene from an episode, or other such "theme".  (Why, yes…it was that complicated.)  One of my favorite compositions was the final Buffy/Joyce scene here, where I would cue Joyce's lines to Buffy by using something similar that Buffy had said to her, or some such. Lots of fun.

Marks: 9/10, because 10s should be hard to come by.  And because there's no guarantee the show won't backslide like Buffy without the antidote, after all.  But still, it was a happy five weeks.

  Reveal hidden contents

I even wrote an essay about how "Believe in yourself" (Joyce's key line to Asylum!Buffy) was the Moral of the Season, just like "I don't want to die" in S1 or "Love makes you do the wacky" in S2.  Wow, was I stupid or what?

But at least it was a happy stupid.  The next year, the five-week spring break came after Lies My Parents Told Me, and I spent that one imagining creative ways for Robin Wood to torture Buffy to death.  (There's one that involves a welder's torch and…) So let me have my happy fun time, okay?

Buffy didn't need Dawn to go to the asylum, we just assume her mum or dad found her diary. And I'm sure you meant to say Dawn is their treasure?

Interesting theory especially given SMG's cameo as an unnamed character on the final few eps of All My Children. 

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=sarah+michelle+gellar+all+my+children&&view=detail&mid=7749D2CFA3DFC760F3367749D2CFA3DFC760F336&&FORM=VRDGAR

I guess someone almost totally recovered but forgot to take her meds today?

14 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Oh come on :) In the UPN era Willow had to be undead to be of any interest to Buffy. OTOH I won't be surprised if Buffy had secret dreams about creating some sort of family with Spike and Willow. Dawn and Giles would probably have a place as well. Just one happy family, you know :)

While watchin' the ep for the very first time I was waiting for some, well, kinky stuff between mad Buffy and her tied up and helpless Slayerettes in the basement. Unfortunately it didn't come that far.  

And nor should it! I figure when it comes to S&M Buffy is more into the M than the S, look at her with Spike and the cuffs?

[Halting Hex]

1 hour ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Buffy didn't need Dawn to go to the asylum, we just assume her mum or dad found her diary.

I'm reasonably sure that if Joyce had sent Buffy to a freaking asylum because of what she wrote in her diary, the last thing Buffy would do would be to continue to write about "vampires" in that exact same diary (Ted) and risk a return trip ticket.  Or joke about "saving the world from vampires", as in Bad Eggs.  IMO, it's pretty clear that Buffy was never locked away in the Sunnydale-616 base timeline (Marvel comics joke), only the Monk-altered one.  How you butterfly-effect Dawn's presence as leading to Buffy getting committed, I leave up to you.

Actually, I'm wondering if even within the DawnVerse, the asylum retcon isn't a retcon?  Would Dawn have griped so much about Buffy making a big deal of her Slayerdom in her diary entries in Real Me ("Oooh, scary vampires, they die from a splinter!") if she remembered that Buffy had been locked away because of it?  Wouldn't Dawn have expressed some guilt at some point? ("Mom thought you were crazy, but it turned out to be true…I'm sorry we didn't trust you more, Buffy.") I mean, I grant you that Dawn doesn't seem to have survivor's guilt about Buffy freaking killing herself over her (Dawn), but even so.

So maybe the Monks just gave Buffy the memory of being in an asylum for reasons of their own, but she wasn't actually in one, not even in this timeline.  Maybe her "memories" are just her way of coping with her flashes of Asylum!Buffy's world, before she realizes that is an entirely different reality?  Just a thought.

[lembergwatcher]

Finally, some Willow bondage. I bet Buffy dreamed about it since the day one - from the moment she saw the redhead walking away from that drinking fountain inside SHS. Since Xander is in the basement too, Buffy's got a unique chance to make her fantasies involving both of her Slayerettes come true... Screw that doctor guy and screw Glarghk Guhl Kashmas’nik. Your friends are all yours now, Slayer. So do with them whatever you want. If you're not planning to let W/X out of your basement alive, why not have fun a little longer?

One might say Buffy has no time for some petty role games here, she's got family and a "normal" life to come back to. But something tells me that the "Buffy wants an ordinary life to live - the one without things that go bump in the night or slayage" phase is long gone by now. And no matter how bad does Buffy want her old life with Joyce and Hank back, deep inside she knows that's not the option anymore. You have already crossed the Rubicon, Buffy Summers, so to speak.

Edited March 30, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎11‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 1:06 AM, Halting Hex said:

I'm reasonably sure that if Joyce had sent Buffy to a freaking asylum because of what she wrote in her diary, the last thing Buffy would do would be to continue to write about "vampires" in that exact same diary (Ted) and risk a return trip ticket.  Or joke about "saving the world from vampires", as in Bad Eggs.  IMO, it's pretty clear that Buffy was never locked away in the Sunnydale-616 base timeline (Marvel comics joke), only the Monk-altered one.  How you butterfly-effect Dawn's presence as leading to Buffy getting committed, I leave up to you.

Actually, I'm wondering if even within the DawnVerse, the asylum retcon isn't a retcon?  Would Dawn have griped so much about Buffy making a big deal of her Slayerdom in her diary entries in Real Me ("Oooh, scary vampires, they die from a splinter!") if she remembered that Buffy had been locked away because of it?  Wouldn't Dawn have expressed some guilt at some point? ("Mom thought you were crazy, but it turned out to be true…I'm sorry we didn't trust you more, Buffy.") I mean, I grant you that Dawn doesn't seem to have survivor's guilt about Buffy freaking killing herself over her (Dawn), but even so.

So maybe the Monks just gave Buffy the memory of being in an asylum for reasons of their own, but she wasn't actually in one, not even in this timeline.  Maybe her "memories" are just her way of coping with her flashes of Asylum!Buffy's world, before she realizes that is an entirely different reality?  Just a thought.

Dawn loves and misses her sister but she lives FOR her. 

18 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Finally, some Willow bondage. I bet Buffy dreamed about it since the day one - from the moment she saw the redhead walking away from that drinking fountain inside SHS. Since Xander is in the basement too, Buffy's got a unique chance to make her fantasies involving both of her Slayerettes come true... Screw that doctor guy and screw Glarghk Guhl Kashmas’nik. Your friends are all yours now, Slayer. So do with them whatever you want. If you're not planning to let W/X out of your basement alive, why not have fun a little longer?

One might say Buffy has no time for some petty role games here, she's got family and a "normal" life to come back to. But something tells me that the "Buffy wants an ordinary life to live - the one without things that go bump in the night or slayage" phase is long gone by now. And no matter how bad does Buffy want her old life with Joyce and Hank back, deep inside she knows that's not the option anymore. You have already crossed the Rubicon, Buffy Summers, so to speak.

Will's been tied up before, at very least in When She Was Bad. 

[lembergwatcher]

29 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Will's been tied up before, at very least in When She Was Bad. 

Yes, but not like that 😁

[Halting Hex]

On 3/30/2019 at 8:34 AM, lembergwatcher said:

Screw that doctor guy and screw Glarghk Guhl Kashmas’nik.

Careful with your word choice, there!  Given Buffy's later-season proclivities, that might seem like a good night's fun to her…

"When you say 'poked', you mean…"  —Xander, having adapted perhaps a bit too well.

[lembergwatcher]

Willow/Tara scene at UC Sunnydale and the entire Willow/Tara post-Tabula Rasa drama makes me wonder how could our Willow possibly survive in a world without Tara for 60+ pre-Hush episodes?

Edited April 21, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

Spoilered mostly for smutty content:

Spoiler

Once you lick crack, you never go back.  Sure, Will thought she was all about the "spurty knowledge", way back when, but her stint as a Flaming-O flamingo showed she was a different kind of bird, indeed.

Remember, we have Willow's own words on the subject (from Two To Go) : 

Quote

...the only thing I had going for me ... were the moments - just moments - when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful. 

So, sure, Willow looks happy plenty of times pre-Tara, but it's all just a front, don't you see?  Watching Indian movies, playing "Anywhere but Here", hanging at the Bronze, the "happiest night of [her] life" when she and Oz make love…she's miserable, deep inside!  Crazy Loser Willow is nothing without Mommy!Tara to hold her hand, and if Mommy's not around, the world will literally end.

God, I fucking hate Season Sux. 😠

Edited April 21, 2019 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

Sometimes I get the impression Willow and Tara are the sole lesbians in Sunnydale and it's the matter of "no choice", i.e. them having no other option but to stick together. Of course, that's bullshit since they've got the whole Lesbian Alliance in UC Sunnydale, but who cares about such small details anyway?

Spoiler

Seems like both Willow and Tara read the script and thus knew all along they would reconcile eventually in Entropy even before leather clad Tara decided to pay Willow a visit by sneaking into Casa Summers through the open window or unlocking the door magically. Otherwise I don't understand why couldn't six months be enough for the two of them to move on with their lives?

Edited May 12, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

I think that

Spoiler

Buffy simply chased after Xander without bothering to lock the door behind her.  So Tara was incredibly rude to barge into Willow's room without calling/knocking/asking if she could come in, but she didn't actually do any breaking and entering, per se.

Yeah, sure, Dawn could have locked the door once Buffy and Xander left, but come on.  I'm still amazed that Dawn manages to dress herself.  Locking doors is a project for another day, I'd say.

And clearly Willow doesn't think that Tara is the Only Other Lesbian in Sunnydale, since she was pretty darned worried about what Tara might be getting up to with that girl in the hallway.

Quote

WILLOW: I mean, they're probably just friends. (pouty) I press my lips against my friends' all the time.

Btw, Buffy, that would be what we call "A Hint".  But I guess you're still too upset about Spike's taste in wedding dates to do anything about it.  (Nice though the "staying fallen" remark was.)  Sigh.  No lip-pressing for Willow, it seems…

[Joe Hellandback]

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

I think that

  Reveal spoiler

Buffy simply chased after Xander without bothering to lock the door behind her.  So Tara was incredibly rude to barge into Willow's room without calling/knocking/asking if she could come in, but she didn't actually do any breaking and entering, per se.

Yeah, sure, Dawn could have locked the door once Buffy and Xander left, but come on.  I'm still amazed that Dawn manages to dress herself.  Locking doors is a project for another day, I'd say.

And clearly Willow doesn't think that Tara is the Only Other Lesbian in Sunnydale, since she was pretty darned worried about what Tara might be getting up to with that girl in the hallway.

Btw, Buffy, that would be what we call "A Hint".  But I guess you're still too upset about Spike's taste in wedding dates to do anything about it.  (Nice though the "staying fallen" remark was.)  Sigh.  No lip-pressing for Willow, it seems…

She sure does in fanfic, from seducing Glory to giving Dawn 'kissing lessons'. 

[lembergwatcher]

6 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

And clearly Willow doesn't think that Tara is the Only Other Lesbian in Sunnydale, since she was pretty darned worried about what Tara might be getting up to with that girl in the hallway.

Both wiccas act as they're the only lesbians in town. Otherwise they could have moved on with their lives and found someone new.

[Joe Hellandback]

20 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Both wiccas act as they're the only lesbians in town. Otherwise they could have moved on with their lives and found someone new.

If they were emotionally ready? It was a big deal for both of them, Willow lured from straighthood and Tara out of her shell. 

[lembergwatcher]

2 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

If they were emotionally ready?

After almost half a year? I guess they should have been.

[MagnusHex]

Finally, an episode in the season that I could wholeheartedly praise since... well, "The Body", maybe, in season 5 (maybe also "The Gift"). This was such an ambitious episode by one "Diego Gutierrez" (Whedon's former assistant apparently), and it stood on the levels of those experimental episodes like "Hush" and "Once More with Feeling". Naturally, I dug this episode much more than Once More, especially with how eerie that ending is.

I love alternate realities in stories, and I love metafiction, so this is the best of both worlds. The idea of Sunnydale being this delusion is an interesting concept not outside the realm of possibility. It's also an incredibly horrifying one too, as we've witnessed this episode, Buffy's mind trapped in her head for six years.

I do wish that Diego went further with this though, because it felt like he only scratched the surface of that alternate reality. It should've been a two-parter at least, because I would love to further explore the effects of Buffy's schizophrenia and how it affects her friends and family in both universes. This whole season has been one huge exploration of inner demons and "adult issues," so it makes sense that mental health concerns are part of it too, but I wish that we got to see (or feel) more of the consequences and problems these adult issues are causing rather than have our heroes moping in angst for 5 to 6 episodes. It truly felt like a drag, the pacing. I think Willow's magic addiction issue was reasonably paced because addictions do need that long to struggle with (or even to identify to begin with), but some of the other angst that was focused on, like Dawn's abandonment issues and Buffy's existential crisis, I just felt like they weren't written with enough clarity and impact to make me care about those issues beyond the sad little faces they're making. Even Willow's addictions were vague enough to leave audience confused and debating whether if it's truly considered a real addiction at all since it's different from substance abuse.

"Normal Again", however, felt a little more different because it felt like it had the potential to reconcile with what Buffy has been dealing with over the past season. That "believe in yourself" moment could've been more powerful if we had more reconciliation with Buffy's belief in a two-part episode, where we the audience could believe again that Buffy could still struggle through all the inner-demons of the world no matter how tough things have gotten so far. That would at least be maturity and growth on our Slayer, progression, as opposed to the stagnant "should I/shouldn't I have feelings for Spike" that's been dragged so long. I crave resolution, an emotional catharsis, a release to all the pent up angst, but it's been a very slow release so far. It did get better though starting last episode with Hell's Bells when there was some drastic changes. It was a negative progress for Xander (more like a degression), but there was still significant change as opposed to stagnancy, which is good. I understand that not every episode can be some explosive change for the characters, but I was just getting exhausted from all the "let's watch them make sad faces for another hour again."

Anyway, thankfully, I'm getting near the end, so I should be able to see a lot more changes and progress for both the heroes and villains.

Edited March 21, 2021 by MagnusHex

[Halting Hex]

On 3/21/2021 at 10:36 AM, MagnusHex said:

I crave resolution, an emotional catharsis, a release to all the pent up angst, but it's been a very slow release so far.

Indeed.  This feels much better, and was a fine place to go into the spring break.  (5 weeks of reruns.)

Spoiler

Unfortunately, it turned out to be as false as all of Buffy's previous Epiphanies of the [every other] Week.

(6.11- I don't want to be dead any more!

6.13-I'm using Spike! I'm so horrible!

6.15-I'm totally breaking up with Spike!)

This one doesn't even last past next episode's teaser, where Spike taunts Buffy about how she hasn't told anyone about their Dirty Little Secret, even though Buffy herself says she's got no reason to keep on lying.  Sigh.

As always, I have to note how great it was to have a true "Three Musketeers" (just B/W/X) scene, for practically the first time since Beer Bad, 56 episodes past.  Compiling the FUSE tv schedule made me recall how often the early S2 episodes were just about B/W/X as a starting point.

2.01-Okay, the teaser is mostly just Xillow, but Buffy shows up for the rescue, and we come right back to them after the ads

2.03-We start with Buffy in Snyder's office and end the teaser with Spike's arrival, but there's a nice B/W/X scene in between

2.04-The three of them on the museum trip, as the nice long teaser lays in the juicy exposition, even before Cordelia and Rodney join in.

2.05-Indian Movie Night.  Betel Nuts and Hair-Braiding.  Nothing could be finer.

2.06-Action in the teaser, but we start at school, with classic trio action (plus Snyder and Larry)

2.07-Vampires in the teaser, and then we start at class, but we get the three of them in the halls after, and that always gives me a happy.

2.08-Not in the teaser, but "Anywhere but Here" right after the credits

2.09-Starts waaaaaay too slowly, but it is a B/W/X scene, until Cordelia shows

2.11-A fun walk home.  Where horrors await.  (Okay, you could say that about Joyce in general, but I'm talking about the serial-killing robot she's banging.  This time, anyhow.)

Plus other scenes, of course.  (Once Angel gets Jenny out of the way, B/W/X hang out in "Willow's classroom" in both 2.19 and 2.20.  If they'd kept that plot device for S3 [Willow took an accreditation course over the summer, while she was stuck in the wheelchair; teaching computers gets her "life experience credit" for college and Snyder doesn't have to pay her a salary], we might have seen many more of those.). It's really ridiculous that we've gone longer than the length of the high-school years without it.

(Barring a brief moment at the bottom of the elevator shaft, or two seconds in the graveyard after Dracula flaps away.)

Spoiler

So…how so we do going forward?  Again, not so well.  We've got the ridiculous reunion with Willow in the cave in 7.03 (with Anya conveniently stepping out to "get help" for no purpose other than to exclude her from the scene) and we've got them telepathically plotting in Show Time (which is shown only in flashback and is completely plot-focused; no human interaction) and what else?  Lusting over Dawn at the Bronze in Him is pretty much the it, unless I've blanked on something.  Sigh.

[lembergwatcher]

Spoiler

Wasn't there a group hug moment involving the Three Musketeers in Primeval?

[Halting Hex]

Yes, I referenced the B/W/X elevator-shaft hug in my post; the spoiler is just for the question of what moments the three of them share, post-6.17.   Sorry if I was unclear.

I grant you that Anya just doesn't like to let Xander out of her sight, generally.  (And Tara's a bit possessive, too.) But, c'mon, Xan.  You're a Responsible Adult, allegedly.  Being able to ditch the girlfriend and hang out with your pals is a Rite of Manhood, right? 

(Plus, given last episode, we can hope that Anya won't be an issue going forward, anyhow.)

[Halting Hex]

Quote

BUFFY: [The Demon] poked me.

Silence.  Buffy reflects, Willow is empathetic, Dawn is scared.  And…Xander?

XANDER (awkward):  Now, when you say "poked", you mean—

Willow scowls and rolls her eyes at him.

(You have to look really quickly to catch this; they cut back to Buffy.)

Sorry, Xan; as Oz said, I'm gonna follow the redhead here.

Sure, those of us watching would hardly be surprised at the idea of Buffy hopping on a random demon while out on patrol, given that we've seen her screwing Spike in an abandoned house, in Spike's crypt (on multiple occasions), in by a dumpster, on the Bronze balcony (with Buffy eschewing underwear) and apparently rolling around on Buffy's front lawn in the early evening with Dawn (and perhaps Willow) in the house.  Yes, Buffy spilled to Tara and Riley caught them in the act and Spike's probably bragged to Clem and

Spoiler

as we'll learn next episode, the Trio has Spike's crypt under video surveillance, so Andrew's probably stroking off to images of Spike's naked bum day and night

…

…but Xander isn't supposed to know anything about this.  As far as he knows, Buffy had sex with one demon, once, and that was four years ago.  For him to go straight to the pornographic place seems to be selling Buffy a little bit short.  To the best of Xander's knowledge, the closest Buffy's come to banging a demon since junior year is when she slept with Parker.

(Okay, given that Xander thinks Buffy and Willow's "Pajama Party Sleepover, with Weapons" in Passion might have been something more, perhaps he also imagines that Buffy enjoyed "orientation" with Kathy.  But Buffy wouldn't have known Kathy was a demon then, so the comparison still wouldn't be relevant.)

Down, boy!

Edited November 7, 2022 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

Maybe Xander too has some supernatural abilities like, say, figuring out the details of his friends' sex lives?.. There's Hellmouth nearby, after all...

Edited November 9, 2022 by lembergwatcher