S07.E20: Touched

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; Wonderful scene between Faith and The Mayor/First, so great to see him back. Buffy finally bests Caleb and some Buffy and Spike scenes to set the Spuffer's hearts aflutter. Oh and everyone has loads of sex

The Bad; I know Spike's trapped in the mission but what about Andrew, surely he can pop out, get a paper? What does Caleb want with the scythe, what good is it to him? Surely the Scoobs must realise that the Bringer will tip off The First allowing it to set the trap?

Best line; Buffy (tearfully); "I don't want to be the one" does she mean the Slayer or just alone? but I do like; Wood; (of The First) "It was just trying to find your Achilles heel" Faith; "No it just talked to me. It does a heel thing too?" (once this Twilight business is over I think it's night classes for you my dear)

Women good/men bad; Interestingly Caleb refers to 'brute strength' just before Buffy wipes the floor with him. It's a very female concept, he has strength and speed but she's agile and intuitive, able to anticipate his every move. Once again Buffy shows her strength as a general, playing to her strengths and turning his power to her advantage.

Jeez!; Giles slits the Bringer's throat

Kinky dinky; Xander and Anya have ice cream sex on the kitchen floor, Faith plays 'ride'em cowgirl' with Wood, him succumbing to her charms by saying "You're the leader"

Captain Subtext; Buffy says that she and Spike were never close and he only wanted her as she was unattainable. But actually the sexless scene between her and Spike falling asleep in one another's arms is the closest they've ever been. Note both Faith and Wood lost their mother at a young age, his mother was a Slayer and now he has sex with one whilst her attraction to him has the same 'Electral' (is that how you put it?) elements as Buffy's. Kennedy says she's going to give Willow 'Screaming joy' and 'Unrestrained moaning'. Obviously thinks a lot of herself in the sack, maybe it's the pierced tongue? She also says she'll 'tether Willow down'. She must be pretty impressive as Xander and Anya can hear Willow moaning all the way down in the kitchen. A nice little moment between Faith and Giles when he praises her leadership, just as with Wes in the Angel-'souless'-arc, Watcher and Slayer finally as it always was intended to be. Faith says it's 'been a while' when she seduces Wood, implying since she's had sex or been with a man? Faith admits to Wood that Wilkins was like a father to her. Then she beds Wood, another older man authority figure with a dark side and possibly demonic essence.

Guantanamo Bay; Torturing the captured Bringer and then Giles slitting his throat in cold blood.

Kills: 2 Bringers for Kennedy who seems the best fighter of all the Potentials by some way. Another Bringer for Giles and one each for Vi, Kennedy and Faith Buffy: 125 vamps, 62 demons, 6 monsters, 10 humans, 1 werewolf, 1 spirit warrior & a robot Giles: 8 vamps, 2 demons, 3 humans/1 god. Will: 6 vamps + 3 demons +1 fawn+1 human. Oz: 3 vamps, 1 zombie Faith: 19 vamps, 6 demons, 4 humans. Xander: 6 vamps, 2 zombies, 1 a demon, 2 humans Anya: 1 vamp and 1 a demon Riley; 18 vamps + 7 demons Spike; 11 vamps and 7 demons+1 human Buffybot; 2 vamps Tara; 1 demon Dawn; 1 vamp + 1 demon Kennedy; 3 humans+1 vampire Amanda; 1 vampire Woods; 5 vamps and 2 demons Vi; 1 human

Alternate scoobies: possessed Andrew

Total number of scoobies: 35 or so. Again, despite the house teeming with Potentials no Chao-Anh but Vi is back. Xander, Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Anya, Spike, Giles, Kennedy, Vi, Rhona, Amanda, Chao-Anh, Wood, Andrew, Faith plus an indeterminate number of potentials.

Notches on Scooby bedpost: Faith beds Wood and Willow and Kennedy finally get it on Giles: 2; Joyce & Olivia, possibly Jenny and 3xDraccy babes? Buffy: 4 confirmed; Angel, Parker, Riley, Spike. 3 possible, Dracula+RJ+Shadowmen's demon(?) Joyce: 1;Giles, 2 possible, Ted and Dracula(?) Oz: 3; Groupie, Willow & Verucca Faith:4 ;Xander, Riley, Bullwhip guy and Wood. Xander: 2; Faith, Anya Willow: 3;Oz, Tara and Kennedy Riley; 3; Buffy, Sandy and unnamed vampwhore Spike; 2 Buffy and Anya Anya; 2 Spike and Xander Kennedy; 1 Willow Wood; 1 Faith

Questions and observations; Amanda during the opening argument very reminiscent of Willow during Buffy's 'intervention' over Angel's return in Revalations (in fact Amanda AND Vi are very reminiscent of season 1 Willow in many ways). Dawn very much in the junior Watcher role now and seemingly a confidant for Giles (the closest thing to Buffy for him?). Buffy feels bad about how she's treated the gang saying she cut herself off and always did. Does the First tell the truth when it takes a form? Everything it says comes true just not in the way people think. What is Caleb's agenda? He wants to rid the world of sin yet allies himself with the First Evil? Or does he just want to destroy humanity as he's so disgusted in them? The fight scenes very Matrix like, Buffy even doing Neo's backward flailing move. The First yearns to be able to touch once more, is that it's eternal punishment, to never be able to feel the flesh? To walk amongst the living yet not know life? Check out Xander's little turn to the camera as the rest are talking, for a moment you almost think he's going to turn traitor (like Wes in WITW)

Marks out of 10; 8/10

[Halting Hex]

Another fucking pointless episode.  Or, given what this is largely composed of, a pointless fucking episode. Six of one…

When Joss returned to oversee these final five episodes (to much praise in the press, of course), he would give interviews about how the biggest challenge was squeezing in everything he wanted, because the eps were so "tightly packed".  Sure can't prove it by this one.

Buffy continues to suck as a character, throwing a man out of his own home in the middle of the night, and likely resulting in the guy's death, since Spike is able to enter uninvited later on.  Oh, sure, Spike says that the First must be messing with the invitation rules…but why would the First do that?  How does the Spuffy Cuddle of Chastity benefit Windbag, exactly?  (Indeed, it leads to Buffy getting her Empowering Nap, and thus kicking Windy's Immaterial ass and foiling its plans.)  So, no, the guy is almost certainly dead.  Only question is whether it's all Buffy's fault for evicting him…or whether Spike killed the guy himself.

(Hey, a vampire's gotta eat, you know?  It's not as if Buffy would mind anyway.   Spike could probably confess to the murder, flat out, and the worst he'd get from Buffy is a sigh/pout as she turns away.)

In other news, apparently Andrew and Spike waste an entire day in the middle of this enormous crisis because of Spike's sunlight issues, and because both of them are too stupid to remember this thing called "a telephone" and let the group know what they've found.  Or maybe this is where Spike got his sexing for the ep, which is why he can be all pure and noble with Buffy later.  I don't know, obviously I skipped the scene.  

I skipped almost all of this one, to be honest.  Just looked at the W/K sexing (which, unfortunately meant I also had to see the disgusting Xanya sexual abuse [he could BARELY WALK last episode, you selfish bitch! Get off that dirty floor!], the pathetic Spuffy fluffing [awww, Spike don't need no dirty sex! His WUV is TWU!] and the laughable Faith/Wood dynamics, which ask me to believe that Robin would have sex with ED and yet not remove her bra. Yeah surrrrrre…), and Faith kicking Spike's ass, and I was done.  Didn't even bother with Faith/First!Mayor, because I was never such a big Groener fan as some others.

Marks: 2/10…more useless than repulsive.  Yay?  But when your series's antepenultimate ep could be pretty much completely skipped, you know you've fucked up your arc something awful.

[Loandbehold]

9 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Women good/men bad; Interestingly Caleb refers to 'brute strength' just before Buffy wipes the floor with him. It's a very female concept, he has strength and speed but she's agile and intuitive, able to anticipate his every move. Once again Buffy shows her strength as a general, playing to her strengths and turning his power to her advantage.

Beating someone one-on-one is not showing strength as a general, but a fight between two people. Even going to the vineyard by herself is not showing acumen as a general. General's lead armies. They don't go on solo missions. 

6 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Buffy continues to suck as a character, throwing a man out of his own home in the middle of the night, and likely resulting in the guy's death, since Spike is able to enter uninvited later on.  Oh, sure, Spike says that the First must be messing with the invitation rules…but why would the First do that?  How does the Spuffy Cuddle of Chastity benefit Windbag, exactly?  (Indeed, it leads to Buffy getting her Empowering Nap, and thus kicking Windy's Immaterial ass and foiling its plans.)  So, no, the guy is almost certainly dead.  Only question is whether it's all Buffy's fault for evicting him…or whether Spike killed the guy himself.

I don't think so. Everyone's leaving Sunnydale. While Buffy throws him out (and I'm not defending that), he likely got a ride from one of the departing families. I take this as he was leaving town forever w/ no intention of returning. Therefore, he abandoned his home. Once he does that, there's no longer anything stopping a vampire from entering uninvited. 

I loved Harry Groener as the Mayor and his scenes with ED, so for me, this was one of the best First-as scenes. I also really did enjoy Faith kicking Spike's ass. Maybe I wouldn't have had Spike done what any sane vampire would have done and that's kill Andrew. Yet another missed opportunity to get rid of that useless and painfully unfunny waste of screen time. 

[Halting Hex]

Well, he didn't seem that interested in leaving, given that he was defending his property with a shotgun and the script calls him sleep-deprived, and he protests against Buffy taking the house away from him and he hadn't packed or anything.  I don't really see his shrugging his shoulders and getting a ride on the old Thumb Express.  (And who's picking up hitch-hikers in the middle of the night at this point, anyhow?)

But fine.  Say that Buffy has de facto commandeered his house and is the new tenant.  Therefore she would need to invite Spike in.  She didn't.  (Unless we operate on the theory that Buffy's home, wherever it may be, is always open to Spike.  Much like her legs.)

Oh, and if we're working on the theory that kicking somebody out of their house means you take possession of it (no cumbersome legal documents such as I spent most of July [it seems] signing involved), then this means that Buffy no longer owns 1630 Revello, right?  It's Dawn's place now; Buffy even references this with her bitter "Why not?  It's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays" line to the poor schmuck she exiled.

So…how does Spike get in there, then?  Pretty sure I didn't see Dawn invite him in, given that she's kvetching about the difficulties in translating Turkish (and wow, did I not miss anything skipping that scene, it doesn't appear) when Dick and Dork waltz through the front door.

Buffy doesn't own the entire town, and Spike isn't invited into any of it.  And yet he comes and goes (and acts like an asshole but that's OT for this argument), much as he pleases.  Annoying.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

Kitchen floor sex scene alone makes me wanna vomit and throw the entire writing team in the pit.

[Loandbehold]

We saw people packing their cars that night to leave town. It doesn't take a lot to say one of them gave him a ride. Also, Buffy doesn't take over ownership of the house. The house is now abandoned of any owner. So, no bar to Spike. For me, it's intent that counts. Buffy didn't abandon her (co-) ownership of Revello Drive even though she was told to and did leave. She stayed in town and I believe she always thought she'd be able to go back - that being thrown out was temporary. Which again means no bar to Spike. It may not work for anyone else, but it works for me. 

[Joe Hellandback]

19 hours ago, Loandbehold said:

Beating someone one-on-one is not showing strength as a general, but a fight between two people. Even going to the vineyard by herself is not showing acumen as a general. General's lead armies. They don't go on solo missions. 

I don't think so. Everyone's leaving Sunnydale. While Buffy throws him out (and I'm not defending that), he likely got a ride from one of the departing families. I take this as he was leaving town forever w/ no intention of returning. Therefore, he abandoned his home. Once he does that, there's no longer anything stopping a vampire from entering uninvited. 

I loved Harry Groener as the Mayor and his scenes with ED, so for me, this was one of the best First-as scenes. I also really did enjoy Faith kicking Spike's ass. Maybe I wouldn't have had Spike done what any sane vampire would have done and that's kill Andrew. Yet another missed opportunity to get rid of that useless and painfully unfunny waste of screen time. 

By which I mean she's a tactician, she adapts to the tactical realities. Yes, that's how I interpreted the whole Spike in the house routine and Harry Groener was ace. 

19 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Well, he didn't seem that interested in leaving, given that he was defending his property with a shotgun and the script calls him sleep-deprived, and he protests against Buffy taking the house away from him and he hadn't packed or anything.  I don't really see his shrugging his shoulders and getting a ride on the old Thumb Express.  (And who's picking up hitch-hikers in the middle of the night at this point, anyhow?)

But fine.  Say that Buffy has de facto commandeered his house and is the new tenant.  Therefore she would need to invite Spike in.  She didn't.  (Unless we operate on the theory that Buffy's home, wherever it may be, is always open to Spike.  Much like her legs.)

Oh, and if we're working on the theory that kicking somebody out of their house means you take possession of it (no cumbersome legal documents such as I spent most of July [it seems] signing involved), then this means that Buffy no longer owns 1630 Revello, right?  It's Dawn's place now; Buffy even references this with her bitter "Why not?  It's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays" line to the poor schmuck she exiled.

So…how does Spike get in there, then?  Pretty sure I didn't see Dawn invite him in, given that she's kvetching about the difficulties in translating Turkish (and wow, did I not miss anything skipping that scene, it doesn't appear) when Dick and Dork waltz through the front door.

Buffy doesn't own the entire town, and Spike isn't invited into any of it.  And yet he comes and goes (and acts like an asshole but that's OT for this argument), much as he pleases.  Annoying.

Because Buffy hasn't relinquished her claim to the house? And I love Junior Watcher Dawn, she's fantastic. 

[Halting Hex]

I really, really have a hard time with the idea that 2nd Amendment Bob has less of a claim to his property (which he was ready to defend to the death) than Buffy has to hers (which she snitted away from and pouted off into the night, having had her "follow me or else" bluff called).  Seems to fly right in the face of basic logic, IMO.

That said, I may just be rightly pissed about this for various other reasons.  Such as Buffy's deliberately being a bitch to this guy, when there's almost certainly a vacant house to either side of his place.  There was absolutely no need for her to do this, but it almost seems as though she's working out the aggression she didn't take out on Dawn, et. al., last episode on this poor schmuck, who again (IMO) almost certainly ends up dying because Buffy felt like doing her impression of a Zax ("not a step to the East, not a step to the West") rather than avoiding the whole issue.

And then you have Spike finding Buffy (again, probably using his stupid SuperNose) and saying that he was able to enter because the First has altered the rules:

Quote

SPIKE: Do you realize I could just walk in here, no invite needed? This town really is theirs now, isn't it? 

Which has to be the most blatant, "oops we goofed" after-the-fact CYA attempt since Marti attributed Buffy sneaking into her bedroom in What's My Line, Part 1 even when Joyce is out of town to "habit". (Marti discusses this on the commentary, much as David Fury on the Primeval commentary talks about how Adam being pissed at Spike's screwing up the plan was actually his own annoyance at the plot hole Doug Petrie had created in The Yoko Factor, where Buffy really can't be using the information Willow found on the discs if B/W aren't talking to each other…)  

I mean, in a better episode, I would probably find this sort of emergency spackling-up the cracks amusing.  But this isn't a better episode, so I don't.  But JMO.

[Loandbehold]

On 11/24/2018 at 12:21 PM, Halting Hex said:

That said, I may just be rightly pissed about this for various other reasons.  Such as Buffy's deliberately being a bitch to this guy, when there's almost certainly a vacant house to either side of his place.  There was absolutely no need for her to do this, but it almost seems as though she's working out the aggression she didn't take out on Dawn, et. al., last episode on this poor schmuck, who again (IMO) almost certainly ends up dying because Buffy felt like doing her impression of a Zax ("not a step to the East, not a step to the West") rather than avoiding the whole issue.

I did say that I wasn't defending Buffy throwing him out of his own house. 

 

On 11/24/2018 at 12:21 PM, Halting Hex said:

And then you have Spike finding Buffy (again, probably using his stupid SuperNose) and saying that he was able to enter because the First has altered the rules:

Quote

SPIKE: Do you realize I could just walk in here, no invite needed? This town really is theirs now, isn't it? 

And, as many have said before, Spike is both an unreliable narrator and an idiot. He knows this isn't Buffy's house and he knows that the town is becoming deserted. For him to draw the conclusion that the First has altered the rules is ridiculous.  

I can't say your view of the (former) owner's fate is wrong. I can just explain how I view it, taking into account that he knew everyone was leaving town permanently, he ran out of the house, and that there were still people packing up their cars. For that reason, I take it as one of his neighbors gave him a ride out of Dodge. Possibly in a Dodge. But, maybe he was killed. And maybe Spike walked over his dead body on the way to the house. And maybe, as he was doing it, he finished his cigarette, dropped it on the guy and used his foot to put it out. I wouldn't be surprised, but I prefer my view. 

[lembergwatcher]

Buffy fails to communicate with her friends and SiTs, takes her toys and leaves Casa Summers.

Fans: Damn the Scoobs and the Potentials! They kicked Buffy out of her own house! Kill Rona and Kennedy! Xander, Willow, Dawn and Giles are traitors! We hate them!

Some time later Buffy herself does what? Right, kicks the guy out of his house.

Fans: Yeah, whatever.

I love the smell of hypocrisy when I feel one.

What I love even more is the excuse: "It's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays". Like a supposed injustice perpetrated against Buffy somehow justifies her doing much worse thing to another human being. Getting stabbed in the gut doesn't condone what Faith did to Joyce, Buffy or Riley afterwards, but any bad thing happening to Buffy leads to some sort of carte blanche when it comes to our blonde Slayer. 

The thing is Buffy wasn't "kicked out" of her house in the strict sense of the word. She left of her own free will, because either she's the boss or she doesn't participate at all. Here Buffy disarms some random guy telling him to get lost. A true role model, you know.

As for some pleasant moments like the sex scenes in Act III, I just wonder whether the ones we see are the only couples engaged in lovemaking or some other people/everyone else in Casa Summers follow their example?

Once again I have my POV on how those pairings may look like, i.e. who should shag who. OK, I agree Faith/Robin dynamics is laughable, but... let it be. As for the rest, well, here are my "dream couples"

• Willow/Kennedy/Xander
• Dawn/Amanda
• Anya/Andrew (yes-yes, on the dirty kitchen floor!!)
• Rona/Vi/Caridad/Colleen
• Giles/???

What about the old G-Man, by the way?.. Because I have difficulties with finding someone for him due to age difference and so on... Your thoughts?

[Halting Hex]

Giles/Xander.  Because…

1.  Kennedy's "not much for the timber".  Willow may be more bi than lesbian, but respect the new girl's preferences, okay?

Spoiler

2.  Giles can't be making any "eye jokes" if he's got Xander's "one-eyed trouser snake" down his throat.  If G-Man won't put a sock in it, he can put some suck in it.

3. We have to give Andrew some m/m soundbites to overhear or he'll never be able to fake it with Anya, no matter how hard she tries to grind on him.  And if Andrew doesn't give Anya what she wants, she'll never get out of the damn kitchen.  And how is Giles supposed to get to his Jaffa Cakes, then?

[Halting Hex]

4 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

What I love even more is the excuse: "It's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays". Like a supposed injustice perpetrated against Buffy somehow justifies her doing much worse thing to another human being.

Exactly.  Buffy's supposed to fight evil, not compound it.  You didn't see her running around trying to sacrifice random virgins to demon-snakes after Reptile Boy, did you?  Since when is "they did it to me, so that makes it okay if I do it, too" Buffy's kind of logic?

[lembergwatcher]

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Giles/Xander.

Well, why not? They may spend the night playing chess on the Casa Summers' back porch.

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Kennedy's "not much for the timber".

OK. She lives in the house full of young and pretty girls. Plenty of choice for Kennedy while W/X can play their movie qoutes game. 

[Halting Hex]

9 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

They may spend the night playing chess on the Casa Summers' back porch.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Bamp-chicka-bamp-bamp!

(And does this mean that those Spuffy scenes set on the back porch [Fool for Bleach, Flooded] were foreshadowing the specifics of the Bronze-boinkage in 6.13?  Damn, I knew I hated those scenes for a reason…)

[catherinejane]

Wierd episode

 

1) that house is FULL of girls and yet 3 couples manage to find a room just for themselves. Does not make sense!

and now we are killing humans (the bringers are human aren't they?) both giles and the Slayers in training. yet when Faith did it, its murder (okay that mayor assistant wasn't evil but these bringers are sitll human)

Have we been killing humans before? not that i can recall.

[lembergwatcher]

8 hours ago, catherinejane said:

1) that house is FULL of girls and yet 3 couples manage to find a room just for themselves. Does not make sense!

Actually nothing makes sense in season 7.

8 hours ago, catherinejane said:

and now we are killing humans (the bringers are human aren't they?) both giles and the Slayers in training.

I think bringers and Allan Finch are different cases. They can hardly be compared...

[Halting Hex]

Allan isn't a fair comp; it was portrayed as a serious mistake, and the start of Faith's slide into darkness.  The question is about "do the 'good' people kill humans"?

Originally, Buffy only killed by accident (Dr. Weirick, the zookeeper) or by failure to save (the swim coach).  She did leave Ford to be vamped, but he was terminally ill and that's what he wanted.

In Season 3, Buffy kills Gwendoline Post (Mrs.), but it's not clear she knew that separating Gwen from the Glove would necessarily be fatal.  Perhaps she merely wanted to (sorry!) disarm her?

No human fatalities I can think of in S4, but come the Dawnverse, this changes:

• Buffy axes a Knight in the chest in Spiral.  (Recall that Buffy had beaten three of the Knights' best, unarmed, simultaneously, in Checkpoint.  Calls of "self-defense" don't work for me.)

• Giles snuffs Ben in Very Pretty Crap.

• Xander commits multiple murders in Once More, with Spuffy, then tries to cover them up.

• Dull!Willow murders Warren in Villains, and Rack in Two to Go.

• Anya slaughters an entire frat house in Selfless.

• Spike commits at least a dozen murders, in and around Conversations with Dead Plot Points.   (Yeah, yeah, "musical mind control"…but he can resist enough to not bite Buffy, so…)

• Andrew, one of the murderers of Katrina in Dead Show (felony-murder statute), is adopted into the gang somewhere around Potential.

And now, this.  Lots and lots of blood on lots and lots of hands, these days.

Quote

ANDREW:  A lot of Buffy's people are murderers, actually.

Sadly true.  Sigh.

[Halting Hex]

So my intended post was going to be about how Anya was too broken up to visit Xander in the hospital in 7.19 but she's climbing all over him in this one, and this is another case of S7 not being consistent from one ep to the next—

(See also "Willow does point-and-blink magic in 7.05 but needs crystals and an incantation in 7.06", "The First sacrifices a platoon of Bringers to kidnap Spike in 7.09 [even though they could just have Spike walk over, as Spike is under its mind-control] because they need Spike specifically to bleed on the Seal, but by 7.14 it turns out Xander is just as good, blood-wise", and "Willow violates Kennedy to drain her power in 7.15, but in 7.16 they're smooching all over the place, without explanation")

—but that plan went out the window when I actually looked at the transcript for 7.19 and discovered that Anya wasn't put out by Xander's injury at all, she just used his permanent maiming as an excuse to passive-aggressively throw that "I need space" from Loandbehold's favorite episode back in his face at the worst possible time, as detailed in my post in the Empty Places thread.

Which says some not-so-nice things about Anya, but as noted, ruins my complaint here.  No problem, I've venom to spare.

Never mind what "Anya dgaf about Xander losing the eye" says about Anya as a character, had they bothered to give ol' One-Joke a semi-human reaction (hey, she's human some of the time, right?) to Xander's injury, it could have served as character development for Xander.  "I lost my eye and now even my sex-obsessed ex- can't stand to touch me" and so on.

But of course, I have a suspicion that Xander losing the eye isn't supposed to be about Xander, anyhow.  It's just more "poor Buffy, she suffers so!" crap.

"Aw, Xander got hurt and Buffy feels guilty!  Poor Buffy!"

"WTF?  Xander and Willow won't support Buffy because Xander got hurt, which is totally his fault for being such a fat loser in the first place!  Fuck those ungrateful scum!  I hope Spuffy kick all of their asses!*"

(*-I actually saw that last "I hope Spuffy, etc." sentence in a contemporary comment.)

"Ahh, look at Spike being there for Buffy when all those backstabbing scum threw her out of her own home!  Only Spike believes in Buffy! Only Spike is Buffy's friend!  Thank Joss that Buffy has Only Spike, Hallowed be His Coat!"

Yup, I'm thinking that Xander's eye died so that Spuffy can live, again, some more.  Which would mean that it turns out that the TWoPPer who cynically said that the purpose of the injury was nothing more than "Gore for the 'Previously…'s, apparently" was being too generous.

Fuck you, Joss.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

On 1/12/2023 at 5:23 AM, Halting Hex said:

Yup, I'm thinking that Xander's eye died so that Spuffy can live, again, some more.  Which would mean that it turns out that the TWoPPer who cynically said that the purpose of the injury was nothing more than "Gore for the 'Previously…'s, apparently" was being too generous.

I remember a statement from some very generous fan I read years ago that said losing an eye was a "punishment" for "hurting" Saint Anya with the whole non-wedding crap.

[Halting Hex]

Would this mean that

Spoiler

Spike's turning into champion flambé in the finale

was "punishment" for

Spoiler

his running out on Dawn-sitting duty to ride his motorcycle to Africa after the rape attempt?

Dang.  Hard cheese, that.  Sunnydale is a rough town, it seems.

[Halting Hex]

You know, we might object to the Xanya-sex in this episode because we're tired of the relationship, or because she didn't even bother to come visit him in the hospital, or because he was so sick yesterday that he could barely stand, or because that dirty kitchen floor is likely to give him an infection (the eye socket must be prone to bacteria, as it can't have fully healed yet)…

…but isn't there an even simpler issue?  This is Buffy's house.  Or Dawn's, if you feel that Buffy's abandoning the property last episode means that little sis "inherited" it.  Or Willow's, if you count her as the adult with the longest continuous residence (even though that only goes back to Same Time, Still Stupid).

Xander has his own apartment, which we've seen multiple times throughout the past few seasons.  Why aren't he and Anya there?

What, he's too injured to travel? Across town? Come on, now.  And surely Anya's the one tending to his medical issues, if any care is needed, and she'd be pretty happy to be back in her old residence, I'd think.  I mean, if Chao An is actually a genius accupuncturist and Xander needs her treatments to deal with the pain, that hasn't been mentioned in the text.  Let the dude rest (or whatever) in his own fucking bed, surely.

Not to mention that the X-Pad is currently home to a bunch of young and vulnerable SiTs, who not only need somebody to make sure the Bringers don't drop by for tea, but who, last we saw, were pretty much wrecking the plumbing and who knows what else.  Seems to me that Xander might want to keep an eye (he's still got one, at least) on his possessions.

It's not as if they can move the whole kit and caboodle into Buffy's place; they're bursting at the seams with guests as it is.  Just four episodes back, Anya was kvetching at Andrew for taking too much time in the in-demand bathroom.

I suppose that, with the general evacuation of the populace, the SiTs might have been spread out into Buffy's neighbors' houses, and so Colleen (Rachel Bilson) and Caridad (Dania Ramirez) and the others are now sleeping in the late Mrs. Kalish's place (1628 Revello) and 1632 on the other side, but in that case, Buffy wouldn't have needed to wander across half the town before she decided to throw 2nd Amendment Bob out of his house (and, apparently, cause his death, as discussed upthread).   She could have just gone around the corner.

(Indeed, there's no reason for her to not do that, anyhow.  The writers just wanted any cheap excuse to fluff Spike's SuperNose.  Blech.)

So Xander's apartment is apparently abandoned, and ALL the SiTs are supposedly crammed in at Buffy's, story logic be damned.  Gee, I'm glad Whedon's back running things, aren't you?

🙄

Edited February 12, 2023 by Halting Hex