S07.E13: The Killer in Me

[Joe Hellandback]

Oh my god, this is ep 135, we're into single figures left!

The Good; Always lovely to see Amy again, sadly her last appearance although she's back in the comics. Nice subplot with 'Is Giles the First?' and some creepy stuff in the old Initiative, very Halloween (the movie not the ep).

The Bad; I find the whole Willow/Kennedy storyline not that involving frankly and I'm normally a Willow fan. Rather ruins the surprise reveal of Amy when EAA's name is in the titles.

Best line; Spike; "Who you gonna call? You know that's never going to be usable again, is it?" (tell that to the 118 118 boys!) but also like; Initiative officer (of Spike) "We're here to help ass-face (noting Buffy's look) Those were agent Finn's exact words"

Women good/men bad; Pretty much all the Warren stuff

Jeez!; Will slapping Amy is shocking

Kinky dinky; When Buffy tries to tell the Initiative that Spike's 'chip' is malfunctioning they seem to think she's referring to something else. Andrew grabs Will's breasts, he and Dawn take the opportunity to feel up Willow/Warren and all the Scoobs grope Giles in the final scene. Giles is affronted that the Scoobes think he's evil because he'd take a group of nubile teenage girls on a camping trip and NOT touch them. Xander appears to wear Aquaman underwear, how does Willow know this? Amy's top is very revealing, I never appreciated how hot she was until this ep.

Captain Subtext; One big lesbian seduction of Willow by Kennedy. Kennedy says that Willow is sexy when she pouts, quite true. Kennedy presumes Willow is gay but Will never actually says so. She asks how long has she enjoyed sex with women (well doesn't EVERYONE?). Interestingly Will says she didn't fall in love with WOMEN but with one WOMAN. Will's mum hardly met Tara. Kennedy says she was first attracted to women when she was five (!) after watching Rhett sweep Scarlett up the staircase in Gone with the Wind. This scene is widely considered to be marital rape but then as a potential Slayer Kennedy has that dark sexual side we see in Faith and Buffy and in

Spoiler

'Get it done' we find out why.

Note that Kennedy wishes to play the Rhett role who's the sexual aggressor just as Kennedy is courting Willow. Kennedy tells Willow she doesn't worry about her "Being too butch". More signs of Andrew and Xander bonding, love Anya and Dawn's little look at him. Dawn and Anya snuggle under a blanket. So, does Amy actually have a gay crush on Willow and is this all the result of jealousy? Certainly Amy at the end seems to be coming on to Kennedy, saying "You must be good" after the revelation about the kiss. Kennedy thinks Willow's freckles are 'lickable'.

Guantanamo Bay; The Initiative's new front is a flower shop, what is it with Buffy and florists?

Missing scenes; Presumably around this time Dawn receives her phonecall from Angelus but we never see it. Also the Scoobies never seem to notice the eternal darkness in LA or Jasmine but then they have their own worries.

Scoobies in bondage: Spike continues to keep himself chained up

Kills: one demon for Buffy

Scoobies go evil: Willow, big time Giles: 1 Cordy: 1 Will: 4 Jenny: 1 Angel: 1 Oz: 1 Joyce: 1 Xander: 4 Anya; 1 Dawn; 1 Buffy; 1 Spike; 1

Alternate scoobies: Willow as Warren Buffy: 8 Giles: 4 Cordy: 1 Will: 6 Jenny: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 2 Joyce: 2 Xander: 4 Tara; 1 Dawn;1 Spike; 1 Anya; 2

What the fanficcers thought; Read an interesting one where Willow's guilt manifest's itself differently, she's visited by Warren every night and he cuts skin from her body. In the follow up story she forgives him and then forgives herself, making him disappear and only dreaming of Tara from then on 'Deserving'. Another good one has Willow confronting Amy and we find out that this is all due to an unrequited gay crush from Amy for Willow. Amy tries to stab Will with her Bringer dagger and Xander shoots Amy with the gun Willow-as-Warren bought. She collapses and dies in the arms of a tearful Willow 'Catch me if I fall'.

Questions and observations; Weird to see flashbacks all the way back to season 4, seems a world away. SMG seems rather hoarse in the first scene. The series seems to be running out of money to judge by the commentary, all that CGI expensive. It strikes me that Spike has moved into the basement just as Xander moves out. Robson the Watcher has survived, the Watcher's Council is not entirely gone and can help Buffy and co in season 8. Shouldn't Xander pack some weapons when he heads off to the desert?

So is Amy working with the First (she uses it's catchphrase, 'It's about power')? But when she talks to Kennedy she seems to not even to be evil, that this is petty jealousy of Willow. OR maybe she's bitter at Willow having killed Rack and left Amy to have painful rehab on her own?

Is the leader of the Initiative team the same guy from the series The Unit? What a shame they couldn't have got Graham back. In the end where we see Warren weeping and saying "I'm sorry baby" is he actually grieving for Katrina?

7/10, not that great

[lembergwatcher]

Because of my 'ship preferences (among other reasons) I loathe this ep with all my heart. Do they want to tell me Kennedy (although I like that girl), whom Willow barely knew for... how long... several months or something, shared almost equally deep and strong emotional connection with the redhead as Xander and Tara had? I'm not buying it.

[Halting Hex]

Second-best episode of the season, a deeply affecting story about Willow, dragged down to 7/10 (and thus below Him) only because of the stupidity of two crappy subplots, not to mention Amy's rather ludicrous MWAH-HAH-HAH ranting in the main story.  But OTOH, Riley gets the best line of his entire time on the series without Marc Blucas even being in the episode, so maybe it should be an 8, after all.

Actually, you can take all three stories and come up with something really good and something really awful in each of them:

A-plot (positive):  all the Willow/Warren stuff, down to Aly's final breakdown in the backyard.  And the bit with "Warren" buying the gun at the end of Act 3 is just chilling.  Also, Buffy almost acts like a friend to Willow for one scene, teasing her about the "tea".

A-plot (negative):  Buffy stupidly punching "First!Warren" (INCORPOREAL, Buffy!  Say it slowly and maybe you'll understand what it means…) and then never apologizing for socking her "best friend" in the jaw at what must have been nearly full strength.  Also, Willow seemed a bit harsh with her threats at Xander, but perhaps we can put that down to the effects of the spell.

B-plot (positive): ASH showing such resolute determination to make staring into a fire look creepy.  Best "misdirection" acting since Michelle T with the tea in No Place Like Home.  Doesn't save the idiot plot (any more than MT's work saved that piss-poor ep), but nice that Tony tried, at least.

B-plot (negative)*;  The entire rest of it.  The idea that nobody could tell if Giles was corporeal when you can hear the table squeaking in the teaser from ASH's quite-corporeal ass sitting on it.  Giles claims he "can't drive" because he hasn't renewed his California license, so he leaves it to Molly and Rona, who are 15 (and Molly's from Australia, to boot).  Giles (allegedly) left Robson unconscious and needing medical attention, and didn't bother to leave a note or summon the authorities or anything that would let Robson know that Giles wasn't dead.  Robson sees no evidence of Giles's death (even if he wasn't revived until he was in hospital, he could have asked if they found Giles's corpse), but he still just assumes it.  Robson waits months to call the Scoobs and tell them that Giles is "dead"…unless that was a really long coma, I suppose.  Or unless the First has taken to making prank phone calls…

C-plot (positive):  "Ass-face".  Should we credit the Sam-o-Matic 5000 for this, too?  I mean, Mrs. Finn is supposed to be so wonderful at everything else, maybe she's just awesome at insulting Spike, too?  But still, awesome.

C-plot (negative);  Spike "remembers" the Initiative giving him drugs?  Like hell he does.  Spike needs a flashlight to see in the dark?  Pretty sure he's a vampire.  My best "guess" is that Spike set the whole thing up so that the demon could kill Buffy, but the failing chip took him out of action before he could deliver the killing blow.  (Shut up.  It makes more sense than what was on the screen.)  Also the "cliff-hanger" is terribly weak; will Buffy re-chip Spike or will she trust his TWU WUV?  Oh, vomit!

But still a fine episode.  You know, a better show might do something with this "Willow" character instead of turning her into wallpaper.  I'm just saying.

22 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Captain Subtext; One big lesbian seduction of Willow by Kennedy.

Fairly certain that a canon couple taking things to the next level (including their first two kisses) isn't "subtext".  That's main text, dude.

Now, if you wish to note that Willow's "it wasn't 'women', it was one woman" line is followed by our cutting to a close up of Buffy, now that's subtext.

22 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Nice subplot with 'Is Giles the First?'

You've misspelled "idiotic, offensive garbage" again, I see.

So that's why I can't go above 7/10 here.  Which, again, is pretty much gold for this season, but still.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

14 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Second-best episode of the season, a deeply affecting story about Willow, dragged down to 7/10 (and thus below Him) only because of the stupidity of two crappy subplots, not to mention Amy's rather ludicrous MWAH-HAH-HAH ranting in the main story.  But OTOH, Riley gets the best line of his entire time on the series with Marc Blucas even being in the episode, so maybe it should be an 8, after all.

Actually, you can take all three stories and come up with something really good and something really awful in each of them:

A-plot (positive):  all the Willow/Warren stuff, down to Aly's final breakdown in the backyard.  And the bit with "Warren" buying the gun at the end of Act 3 is just chilling.  Also, Buffy almost acts like a friend to Willow for one scene, teasing her about the "tea".

A-plot (negative):  Buffy stupidly punching "First!Warren" (INCORPOREAL, Buffy!  Say it slowly and maybe you'll understand what it means…) and then never apologizing for socking her "best friend" in the jaw at what must have been nearly full strength.  Also, Willow seemed a bit harsh with her threats at Xander, but perhaps we can put that down to the effects of the spell.

B-plot (positive): ASH showing such resolute determination to make staring into a fire look creepy.  Best "misdirection" acting since Michelle T with the tea in No Place Like Home.  Doesn't save the idiot plot (any more than MT's work saved that piss-poor ep), but nice that Tony tried, at least.

B-plot (negative)*;  The entire rest of it.  The idea that nobody could tell if Giles was corporeal when you can hear the table squeaking in the teaser from ASH's quite-corporeal ass sitting on it.  Giles can't drive because he hasn't renewed his California license, so he leaves it to Molly and Rona, who are 15 (and Molly's from Australia, to boot).  Giles (allegedly) left Robson unconscious and needing medical attention, and didn't bother to leave a note or summon the authorities or anything that would let Robson know that Giles wasn't dead.  Robson sees no evidence of Giles's death (even if he wasn't revived until he was in hospital, he could have asked if they found Giles's corpse), but he still just assumes it.  Robson waits months to call the Scoobs and tell them that Giles is "dead"…unless that was a really long coma, I suppose.  Or unless the First has taken to making prank phone calls…

C-plot (positive):  "Ass-face".  Should we credit the Sam-o-Matic 5000 for this, too?  I mean, Mrs. Finn is supposed to be so wonderful at everything else, maybe she's just awesome at insulting Spike, too?  But still, awesome.

C-plot (negative);  Spike "remembers" the Initiative giving him drugs?  Like hell he does.  Spike needs a flashlight to see in the dark?  Pretty sure he's a vampire.  My best "guess" is that Spike set the whole thing up so that the demon could kill Buffy, but the failing chip took him out of action before he could deliver the killing blow.  (Shut up.  It makes more sense than what was on the screen.)  Also the "cliff-hanger" is terribly weak; will Buffy re-chip Spike or will she trust his TWU WUV?  Oh, vomit!

But still a fine episode.  You know, a better show might do something with this "Willow" character instead of turning her into wallpaper.  I'm just saying.

Fairly certain that a canon couple taking things to the next level (including their first two kisses) isn't "subtext".  That's main text, dude.

Now, if you wish to note that Willow "it wasn't 'women', it was one woman" line is followed by our cutting to a close up of Buffy, now that's subtext.

You've misspelled "idiotic, offensive garbage" again, I see.

So that's why I can't go above 7/10 here.  Which, again, is pretty much gold for this season, but still.

Is that 'cut to Buffy' bit real or just something you came up with?

[Halting Hex]

17 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Is that 'cut to Buffy' bit real or just something you came up with?

Not only is it real, it's in the script.  (Granted they might not have been intending the subtext, but that's a different argument.)

Quote

WILLOW:  Three years ago. That's when I knew. And it wasn't women. It was woman. Just one.

Kennedy nods. 

KENNEDY: Lucky woman.

INT. SUMMERS' HOUSE BASEMENT - NIGHT 

Buffy's coming down the stairs, holding a clean towel.

Yeah, Buffy's had 135 episodes' worth of luck, so far.  A pity she hasn't appreciated it.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Halting Hex