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S07.E21: End of Days


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The Good; Even the most ardent Spuffer must cheer at the sight of Angel's return.

The Bad; The First says once the Hellmouth has opened it will enter all humanity. But wasn't it already there? DB's name in the opening credits, will they ever learn?

Best line; Faith; "Thank god we're hot chicks with superpowers!" Buffy; "Takes the edge off" although I also like; Caleb; (indicating the scythe) "Unless you can prise that out of solid rock" (Buffy effortlessly does just that) "Darn!"

Women good/men bad; The Guardians have been looking out for Slayer all this time, protecting them from the male domination of the Watcher's Council (who in fairness do have female members?). Whilst it's fine for Angel to help Buffy out in her final battle with Caleb it's important that she defeats him herself, Buffy isn't the damsel who needs to be rescued, she's the heroine and she beats him on her own terms.

Jeez!; Anya has the possibly the worst bedside manner ever. Also the poor potential being ripped apart by the Turok-Han and the Guardian's neck being broken.

Kinky dinky; Willow comments that 'Scythe matters'. Do we count Caleb and the First as sex? Faith comments that Wood doesn't lack for stamina. Spike says that he and Buffy have done things he 'Can't even spell'.

Captain Subtext; Buffy seems more than a little upset that Faith has bedded Wood. Buffy remarks to Spike that she doesn't need him to be defensive and send mixed signals because 'I have Faith for that'.

Apocalypses; 7,

Recurring characters killed: 17, alas Miss Kitty Fantastico, we knew her. No wonder Dawn warned Kennedy about messing about with crossbows! Jesse, Flutie, Jenny, Kendra, Larry, Snyder, Professor Walsh, Forrest, McNamara, Joyce, Katrina, Tara, Quentin Travers, Chloe, Molly, Miss Kitty, Jonathon

Sunnydale deaths; 3 potentials gone although none are recurring characters 110

Total number of scoobies: 35 or so.

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:

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

What the fanficcers thought; Common theme in fic is that no matter what befalls the Slayers the Guardians are there to save them. Also when Buffy and Faith finally kiss and make up they do a lot more than just talk.

Questions and observations; Spike mentions The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch which Monty Python's Arthurian Knights used to finish off the killer rabbit. Bet Anya's a fan! Kennedy is quite the leader with Faith down for the count. For a little while you wonder if Xander is actually going to go evil, little looks and things he says like 'Guess so' when the others suggest going to help Faith. I wonder if the whole kidnap Dawn sequence was filmed out of series, that we were supposed to think he had turned evil? Anya comments that she never makes reckless wishes, certainly not with D'Hoffryn out to get her. Buffy says that she loves her friends but ultimately has to stay alone. Faith ventures that she and Buffy always clash because there's only meant to be one Slayer at any one time.

Wouldn't Xander want to take Anya with him if he's splitting town? The First as Joyce told Dawn when the end came Buffy wouldn't choose her and in a sense that's what happens here.

Spike says he's never been close to anyone, presumably not even Dru but then he didn't have a soul, he could only love 'Quite well'.

In her letter to Dawn Buffy tells her that 'Everything I do is for you', Dawn is the reason for the entire Buffyverse. For a moment at the end you think Spike is going to turn into Iago as he watches Buffy with Angel whilst being goaded by The First as Buffy (just as you thought Wes might in WITW when he sees Gunn and Fred). Is this where Spike finally realises that

Spoiler

there's no future for him and Buffy? Despite all they mean to each other?


Marks out of 10; 9/10 would get that for Angel showing up alone!

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On 11/24/2018 at 6:35 AM, Joe Hellandback said:

Dawn is the reason for the entire Buffyverse.

Didn't I tell you to lay off the drugs?  Sigh. (J/K, but…)

I mean, it's all well and good to have a favorite character, but clearly L'il Sis is far from essential to the 'Verse, given that we have 78 episodes' worth of evidence that it survives quite well without Shiny McWhiny even existing.  (79, really, given that almost all of Buffy vs. Dracula happens before the results of the MonkFuckery appear.)  Buffy protected a whole lot of innocents, going back to Willow in the pilot, before some slapped-together green energy started claiming to be related to her.

Indeed, it's arguable that Dawn is the least-essential part of Buffy's mission, given that she's the only person Buffy "saves" who can't actually die.  (Since you can't "kill" energy…darn it.) Willow's story continues because Buffy saves her from Thomas, as does Cordelia's when Buffy saves her from Luke, or Xander's when Buffy saves him from "Natalie French", or Giles when Buffy saves him from Andrew Borba…but let Dawn fall victim to the Notorious Harmony Gang, and Buffy would be sad and the Key would no longer exist in Michelle Trachtenberg-shaped form…but it would still be there.  There would be nothing lost from the universe that had been there the episode before.

Meanwhile, Joss continues to piss away essential screen time on forced, fake "suspense".  We get multiple scenes with this "Xander kidnaps Dawn" plot, resolving in Dawn's tasering him.  (Where did she get the taser from?  Is it really a great idea to taser a guy when he's driving down the highway?)  How does this move the plot forward?  Spike glares balefully at Buffy and Angel's smoochy time…will this allow the First to turn him against Buffy?
 

Spoiler

Nope and nope.  While Dawn kicking Buffy in the shins and Spike drilling Buffy in the vag are both bound to please certain segments of the fandom, in the end, all Chosen does is undo the "drama" we're given here.  But essentially, we're right back where we started from.  Again.  Empty wind, wasted time…shitty plotting.

(Also, how does Dawn haul Xander's not-insubstantial ass out from behind the steering wheel so she can drive them home?  And since when does Dawn drive, anyway?)

And I really hope that Xander was just kidding about Giles making jokes about Xan's missing eye, but given how much of an ass Giles was being, both throughout the season in general, and to Xander specifically in the DawnVerse, I can't exactly be sure.  The writers might have thought they were going for "friendly banter" and not "cruelly mocking Xander's permanently disfiguring injury", much like the "gallows humor" excuse that gets deployed elsewhere. 

But it's still grotesque.  TWoP had a thread named "The Deep Bitterness Society", where those who were disgusted by the turn the series had taken could come to bitch freely, without being accused of hurting the delicate feelings of the Whedonites.  And after this ep aired, one poster there went on a rant, which was eventually transposed to the board's successor thread, "Worst Thing Ever".  

It started by deploring how little exploration had gone into the "Xander loses an eye, FFS!" story, how little depth had been invested in showing his learning to cope with the pain, the extent of loss, how more sympathy had been given for Lindsay's well-deserved loss of his hand on Angel, and ended something like this:

Quote

POSTER:  Can somebody tell me what the point of this was, please?

OTHER POSTER:  Gore for the "Previously…"s, apparently.

But you know, it's important to assassinate Giles's character off-screen.  That way we can have more time for Spuffy to pout at each other, pointlessly.  (Not to mention other pointless shit, like Anya and Andrew in the hospital.)  Honestly, the only thing of value in this episode, besides the "Angel's dramatic entrance" bit, is "Buffy half-asses a non-apology at Giles, and we're supposed to take that a resolution on all the Scoobs' internal issues.  Oh, and Willow's in the room, too, so that 'counts' as our B/W 'reconciliation, even though they don't even speak to each other."

What useless, empty, fucking garbage.  So, par for the course, then?

1/10.  Because I, much like Cordelia, am a great humanitarian. :)

Edited by Halting Hex
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On 11/24/2018 at 1:35 PM, Joe Hellandback said:

Buffy says that she loves her friends but ultimately has to stay alone. Faith ventures that she and Buffy always clash because there's only meant to be one Slayer at any one time.

And I venture that I want to punch Joss in the face. What a pile of BS this whole exchange is. Oh, us Slayers don't need these puny normal humans who have saved our asses dozens of time. Faith clashed with Buffy because Faith went on full-on idiot psycho in S3 at the drop of a hat. This was due to Faith's own myriad of issues (and Giles being a terrible Watcher because the plot demanded it), not anything intrinsic to Slayer nature that prevents cooperation with other Slayers.

On 11/24/2018 at 1:35 PM, Joe Hellandback said:

The Guardians have been looking out for Slayer all this time, protecting them from the male domination of the Watcher's Council

Correction: "The Guardians say that they have been looking out for Slayer all this time" but that's about as credible as Oz's claim to be God. So many apocalypses prevented by Buffy and pals and this idiot "Guardian" doesn't even know her name?!? If Joss wanted to deliberately make fun of feminism he wouldn't have done any better job than he did (I assume, generously) inadvertently here with this joke of an organization.

Speaking of a joke, don't you love it how Caleb, the idiot, first lured Buffy and pals to the vineyard, kicked their asses but let them go without trying to really finish them off, then again kicked Buffy's ass and let her live for no reason, then, wait for it, it turned out he was trying to keep them away from the vineyard all along! Why? Because Deus Ex Machine No. 1 was there. But of course, Buffy, having read the script, sees through Caleb's incoherent and illogical behavior and knows the Scythe of Plot Contrivance is there and we are encouraged to hate the "mutineers" because they dare suggest Caleb wouldn't be dumb enough to lure them into a place where the weapon of his doom is hidden. Absolute amateur hour all around in the writers room. Or rather, amateur two years.

Quote

In her letter to Dawn Buffy tells her that 'Everything I do is for you'

Once again, the characters tell us one thing but their actions belie their words.

Quote

Meanwhile, Joss continues to piss away essential screen time on forced, fake "suspense".

Joss seems to have such a hard-on for "Gotcha!" moments and plot twists but he rarely manages to write any which make any sense in retrospect. Even the big twist in season 2, back when the show was outstanding - Angel losing his soul, is reliant on Jenny's relatives being literally too dumb to live. Still much better than stuff like Enemies, No Place Like Home and the many twists in S7 which completely and utterly fall apart if one starts thinking a bit more about the plot mechanics, of course.

Edited by Jack Shaftoe
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1 hour ago, Halting Hex said:

how little exploration had gone into the "Xander loses an eye, FFS!" story, how little depth had been invested in showing his learning to cope with the pain, the extent of loss, how more sympathy had been given for Lindsay's well-deserved loss of his hand on Angel,

Xander, who is he? The sun rises and sets on Ssssspike in the Spuffyverse. I bet most Whedonites and Spuffy fans would have been in the seventh heaven if Caleb snapped the guy's neck or ripped his head off at the end of Dirty Girls. And I honestly don't know what is worse for Xander: physical pain or the pain of knowing he's of little use for Buffy from now on and she'll try to get rid of him under any pretext.

Quote

XANDER
I should be at your side. That's all I'm saying.

BUFFY
You will be. You're my strength, Xander. You're the reason I made it this far. I trust you with my life. That's why I need you to do this for me.

You. Are. Fucking. Hypocrite. Buffy Summers. I know it and you know it too.

Also the show relying on too many deus ex machina moments (like that unknown woman taken out of writers' asses who gave Buffy the scythe) is a sure sign of lazy writing and outright suckiness.

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56 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

Absolute amateur hour all around in the writers room. Or rather, amateur two years.

S5:  Brother Idiot Jeb places the Key (in Dawn-form) in Buffy's life for safekeeping.  Then he goes to visit Buffy, making it incredibly easy for Glory to follow him and realize she needs to be looking in Sunnydale, rather than any place else in the world.

S7:  Caleb hides the Little Red Axe at the vineyard.  Then he sets a trap to lure Buffy to the vineyard, the one place he doesn't want her to be.  Then, having kicked her ass, he ambushes her at school, but chooses not to kill her (for no reason ever given), instead trying to decoy her away from the secret location he just gave away.  (I mean, even Buffy isn't stupid enough to fall for that…) Then he digs the Axe out of the rock, which again, can't help him in any way whatsoever.  Are we sure there wasn't a crossover we missed, and Glory didn't brain-suck Caleb before she got to town?

Literally all Brother Idiot Jeb and Caleb needed to do was absolutely nothing.  Go to the beach, enjoy some Mai Tais*, find a nice gay bar.  I mean, anything else would have been better.  Oy.

*-I went to Hawai'i for the first time this year.  Flew First Class, because that's how I spoil myself, and because you get free booze there.  Had a few Mai Tais.  Honestly not too impressed.  (I liked the Blue Hawai'is much better.  And the Grasshopper.  And…yeah, the luau I went to had cheap booze, too.) Oh, well.

Edited by Halting Hex
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Oh, and I see I forgot to discuss the two Übervamps we see in this episode.  You know, despite Andrew having cried the Seal closed five episodes ago.  

Spoiler

So, is the Seal closed…or not?  Well, given that Buffy has to bleed on it to open it next episode, it appears so.

 So where did those Übies come from? Did they take the stairs? I mean, if you build an entire episode around closing the Seal, you might want to remember that this happened.  Sheesh.

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On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 10:21 AM, Halting Hex said:

Didn't I tell you to lay off the drugs?  Sigh. (J/K, but…)

I mean, it's all well and good to have a favorite character, but clearly L'il Sis is far from essential to the 'Verse, given that we have 78 episodes' worth of evidence that it survives quite well without Shiny McWhiny even existing.  (79, really, given that almost all of Buffy vs. Dracula happens before the results of the MonkFuckery appear.)  Buffy protected a whole lot of innocents, going back to Willow in the pilot, before some slapped-together green energy started claiming to be related to her.

Indeed, it's arguable that Dawn is the least-essential part of Buffy's mission, given that she's the only person Buffy "saves" who can't actually die.  (Since you can't "kill" energy…darn it.) Willow's story continues because Buffy saves her from Thomas, as does Cordelia's when Buffy saves her from Luke, or Xander's when Buffy saves him from "Natalie French", or Giles when Buffy saves him from Andrew Borba…but let Dawn fall victim to the Notorious Harmony Gang, and Buffy would be sad and the Key would no longer exist in Michelle Trachtenberg-shaped form…but it would still be there.  There would be nothing lost from the universe that had been there the episode before.

Meanwhile, Joss continues to piss away essential screen time on forced, fake "suspense".  We get multiple scenes with this "Xander kidnaps Dawn" plot, resolving in Dawn's tasering him.  (Where did she get the taser from?  Is it really a great idea to taser a guy when he's driving down the highway?)  How does this move the plot forward?  Spike glares balefully at Buffy and Angel's smoochy time…will this allow the First to turn him against Buffy?
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Nope and nope.  While Dawn kicking Buffy in the shins and Spike drilling Buffy in the vag are both bound to please certain segments of the fandom, in the end, all Chosen does is undo the "drama" we're given here.  But essentially, we're right back where we started from.  Again.  Empty wind, wasted time…shitty plotting.

(Also, how does Dawn haul Xander's not-insubstantial ass out from behind the steering wheel so she can drive them home?  And since when does Dawn drive, anyway?)

And I really hope that Xander was just kidding about Giles making jokes about Xan's missing eye, but given how much of an ass Giles was being, both throughout the season in general, and to Xander specifically in the DawnVerse, I can't exactly be sure.  The writers might have thought they were going for "friendly banter" and not "cruelly mocking Xander's permanently disfiguring injury", much like the "gallows humor" excuse that gets deployed elsewhere. 

But it's still grotesque.  TWoP had a thread named "The Deep Bitterness Society", where those who were disgusted by the turn the series had taken could come to bitch freely, without being accused of hurting the delicate feelings of the Whedonites.  And after this ep aired, one poster there went on a rant, which was eventually transposed to the board's successor thread, "Worst Thing Ever".  

It started by deploring how little exploration had gone into the "Xander loses an eye, FFS!" story, how little depth had been invested in showing his learning to cope with the pain, the extent of loss, how more sympathy had been given for Lindsay's well-deserved loss of his hand on Angel, and ended something like this:

But you know, it's important to assassinate Giles's character off-screen.  That way we can have more time for Spuffy to pout at each other, pointlessly.  (Not to mention other pointless shit, like Anya and Andrew in the hospital.)  Honestly, the only thing of value in this episode, besides the "Angel's dramatic entrance" bit, is "Buffy half-asses a non-apology at Giles, and we're supposed to take that a resolution on all the Scoobs' internal issues.  Oh, and Willow's in the room, too, so that 'counts' as our B/W 'reconciliation, even though they don't even speak to each other."

What useless, empty, fucking garbage.  So, par for the course, then?

1/10.  Because I, much like Cordelia, am a great humanitarian. :)

If I have a drug it's called the Dawnster! Everything she does is for Dawn, she saves countless innocents which Dawn represents but Dawn is the prize Buffy gets in return for being the Slayer, she'd never have had her otherwise. She gives Buffy the will to go on in season 6 and snaps her out of it at the end of season 5. 

 Plus humour is how Xander deals with things, Lindsey doesn't have the same sympathy within WR&H because they're EVIL! Plus Anya and Andrew are interesting, 2 evil doers coming to terms with their humanity.  

On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 12:40 PM, Jack Shaftoe said:

And I venture that I want to punch Joss in the face. What a pile of BS this whole exchange is. Oh, us Slayers don't need these puny normal humans who have saved our asses dozens of time. Faith clashed with Buffy because Faith went on full-on idiot psycho in S3 at the drop of a hat. This was due to Faith's own myriad of issues (and Giles being a terrible Watcher because the plot demanded it), not anything intrinsic to Slayer nature that prevents cooperation with other Slayers.

Correction: "The Guardians say that they have been looking out for Slayer all this time" but that's about as credible as Oz's claim to be God. So many apocalypses prevented by Buffy and pals and this idiot "Guardian" doesn't even know her name?!? If Joss wanted to deliberately make fun of feminism he wouldn't have done any better job than he did (I assume, generously) inadvertently here with this joke of an organization.

Speaking of a joke, don't you love it how Caleb, the idiot, first lured Buffy and pals to the vineyard, kicked their asses but let them go without trying to really finish them off, then again kicked Buffy's ass and let her live for no reason, then, wait for it, it turned out he was trying to keep them away from the vineyard all along! Why? Because Deus Ex Machine No. 1 was there. But of course, Buffy, having read the script, sees through Caleb's incoherent and illogical behavior and knows the Scythe of Plot Contrivance is there and we are encouraged to hate the "mutineers" because they dare suggest Caleb wouldn't be dumb enough to lure them into a place where the weapon of his doom is hidden. Absolute amateur hour all around in the writers room. Or rather, amateur two years.

Once again, the characters tell us one thing but their actions belie their words.

Joss seems to have such a hard-on for "Gotcha!" moments and plot twists but he rarely manages to write any which make any sense in retrospect. Even the big twist in season 2, back when the show was outstanding - Angel losing his soul, is reliant on Jenny's relatives being literally too dumb to live. Still much better than stuff like Enemies, No Place Like Home and the many twists in S7 which completely and utterly fall apart if one starts thinking a bit more about the plot mechanics, of course.

No, I love it, they have a gift yet a burden and only they can understand it. Faith is Buffy's darkside and it could easily have fallen but for her friends and family. The Guardians do their best but their role seems more to counter the Shadow Men than anything else. 

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(edited)
On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 12:51 PM, lembergwatcher said:

Xander, who is he? The sun rises and sets on Ssssspike in the Spuffyverse. I bet most Whedonites and Spuffy fans would have been in the seventh heaven if Caleb snapped the guy's neck or ripped his head off at the end of Dirty Girls. And I honestly don't know what is worse for Xander: physical pain or the pain of knowing he's of little use for Buffy from now on and she'll try to get rid of him under any pretext.

You. Are. Fucking. Hypocrite. Buffy Summers. I know it and you know it too.

Also the show relying on too many deus ex machina moments (like that unknown woman taken out of writers' asses who gave Buffy the scythe) is a sure sign of lazy writing and outright suckiness.

Untrue, I liked the whole Xander plot because it gave him some screentime and a great storyline for the last eps whereas Spike as you've rightly claimed dominated the final few seasons for good or ill (we've reached Just Rewards over on the Angel board with Spike and Angel arguing over who deserved 'redemption' i.e. Buffy more, Spike making a pretty good argument that he is better).  I like the scythe and the Guardians, very much suits the full circule vibe of this season.

 Buffy entrusts Xander with Dawn, the most precious thing in the world to her, sending them away to save both.   

On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 1:36 PM, Halting Hex said:

S5:  Brother Idiot Jeb places the Key (in Dawn-form) in Buffy's life for safekeeping.  Then he goes to visit Buffy, making it incredibly easy for Glory to follow him and realize she needs to be looking in Sunnydale, rather than any place else in the world.

S7:  Caleb hides the Little Red Axe at the vineyard.  Then he sets a trap to lure Buffy to the vineyard, the one place he doesn't want her to be.  Then, having kicked her ass, he ambushes her at school, but chooses not to kill her (for no reason ever given), instead trying to decoy her away from the secret location he just gave away.  (I mean, even Buffy isn't stupid enough to fall for that…) Then he digs the Axe out of the rock, which again, can't help him in any way whatsoever.  Are we sure there wasn't a crossover we missed, and Glory didn't brain-suck Caleb before she got to town?

Literally all Brother Idiot Jeb and Caleb needed to do was absolutely nothing.  Go to the beach, enjoy some Mai Tais*, find a nice gay bar.  I mean, anything else would have been better.  Oy.

*-I went to Hawai'i for the first time this year.  Flew First Class, because that's how I spoil myself, and because you get free booze there.  Had a few Mai Tais.  Honestly not too impressed.  (I liked the Blue Hawai'is much better.  And the Grasshopper.  And…yeah, the luau I went to had cheap booze, too.) Oh, well.

 

I took it that Glory's boys were able to track the Key through magic, hence why she found them in the first place. Caleb doesn't hide the axe, the Guardians do. He doesn't kill Buffy because another Slayer would then be called? 

 Did you see the Magnum house? 

On ‎01‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 3:37 AM, Halting Hex said:

Oh, and I see I forgot to discuss the two Übervamps we see in this episode.  You know, despite Andrew having cried the Seal closed five episodes ago.  

  Hide contents

So, is the Seal closed…or not?  Well, given that Buffy has to bleed on it to open it next episode, it appears so.

 So where did those Übies come from? Did they take the stairs? I mean, if you build an entire episode around closing the Seal, you might want to remember that this happened.  Sheesh.

Maybe the First had already raised them and was keeping them in reserve? Besides Andrew's tears were largely a matter for stopping the seal's influence rather than closing it?

Edited by Joe Hellandback
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Quote

The Guardians do their best but their role seems more to counter the Shadow Men than anything else. 

If their best is literally doing nothing to help Buffy for seven years, one wonder what their worst might be.

Quote

Caleb doesn't hide the axe, the Guardians do. He doesn't kill Buffy because another Slayer would then be called? 

So what, he is obviously much stronger than a Slayer and an inexperienced one is not going to be as good in a fight as Buffy anyway.

Quote

I took it that Glory's boys were able to track the Key through magic, hence why she found them in the first place.

And yet they didn't manage to find it for months and had to resort to interrogating Spike and Tara.

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49 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Everything [Buffy] does is for Dawn, she saves countless innocents which Dawn represents

She already had that, it was called "Willow", and it developed organically, right from the pilot, instead of being forced into Buffy and everyone else's minds (probably killing poor Joyce) by the Meddlesome Monks.

51 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Dawn is the prize Buffy gets in return for being the Slayer

First of all, if you're doing heroism to get "a prize", then you're NOT a hero.  (David Gerrould had a great essay on this in one of his Star Trek books.)  Secondly, Buffy already has her "prize"…that would be Willow and Xander, as she acknowledges in The Wish. (And not only do they save each other emotionally, but they save each other physically [without Buffy coming to Sunnydale, the three of them die a combined five deaths in that episode alone], as Xander already has saved Buffy in our own dimension.)

56 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

[Dawn] snaps [Buffy] out of it at the end of season 5.

 More precisely, the thought of having failed Dawn is what causes Buffy to go catatonic late in S5, and it's up to Willow to rouse Buffy from her delirium, which mostly consists of killing Dawnie.  Meanwhile, Dawn herself is too busy trying to keep from dying of boredom in that endless Ben/Glory morphing scene…

59 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

humour is how Xander deals with things

He wasn't trying to be funny about the eye on his own (he'd already done that, going back to hospital scene in Empty Places), he was complaining that Giles kept making "jokes" about the eye.  So either Giles has been a total asshole to Xander while we haven't been looking (and has been driving Xander up the wall by doing so), or Xander is just "kidding" about Giles doing this, and thus slandering Giles's reputation when the G-Man isn't around to defend himself.  Either possibility rather sucks.

1 hour ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Lindsey doesn't have the same sympathy within WR&H because they're EVIL!

I didn't say that Lindsey wasn't getting sympathy from WR&H, the poster I quoted was saying that Mutant Enemy had spent more time on a sympathetic treatment of Lindsey's loss of his hand (those sad glances at his guitar in Dead End, and indeed the whole episode) "which he totally deserved to lose" (and this despite Lindsey being nothing more than a subvilllain) than they'd spent on Xander, the second-billed character on all seven seasons of this show, suffering a far-worse and far-crueler injury here.

But you're probably right;  ME was no better than WR&H on this issue.  Yay?

58 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Buffy entrusts Xander with Dawn, the most precious thing in the world to her, sending them away to save both

Spoiler

Except of course that they both come back and fight the next episode, which could easily have been as fatal for them as it was for Anya, Amanda, Chao An, or Spike.  So not such a brilliant plan, it turns out.

 

1 hour ago, Joe Hellandback said:

I took it that Glory's boys were able to track the Key through magic, hence why she found them in the first place.

No, she followed the monk.  Otherwise it would have been much easier for them to find the Key once they were only searching in Sunnyhell, specifically, rather than having to search the entire planet.  But as Glory notes in Forever, they didn't even have the slightest clue what they were looking for, never mind where, until Ben semi-blabbed to Jinx.

1 hour ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Caleb doesn't kill Buffy because another Slayer would then be called? 

Spoiler

But as we see next episode, there are still (SOMEHOW?????) thousands of Potential Slayers all over the globe.  Any new Slayer might not have had the opportunity to realize she had been called (Buffy had experienced some weird dreams, but not noticed any physical changes, until Merrick showed up), much less travel to Sunnydale, before Caleb and the First had unleashed their apocalypse.

Also, given that no new Slayer was apparently called when Buffy died in The Gift, it seems unlikely that one would be called if she died now.  "The Slayer Line runs through Faith" was the party line, although I guess you would have to kill Faith to prove it.

1 hour ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Did you see the Magnum house?

OT: no, I was only out there for three days and didn't make it out to Waimanalo to see the original Robin's Nest.  (Which is apparently being demolished, btw.)  It was less than a month before I was scheduled to move from LA to South Carolina when I had my "you know, I've lived in LA all these years and never been to Hawai'i; it's probably a lot easier to get there from here than it will be from the East Coast" brainstorm.  So I barely squeezed it in; I went Saturday-Tuesday when I was moving the next Sunday.  Which is objectively crazy, as the movers were coming on Friday, but even the increased packing costs didn't make a dent the $1700+ I'd saved by traveling from the Left Coast.  (Would have been even more if I hadn't dithered until I needed to book my return through Tacoma, but even so. Or if the stupid movers hadn't broken my TV…)  

Hectic, but fun.  Went to Pearl Harbor, went parasailing, went to an Aloha festival, went to a Luau, went on a submarine to view the deep-sea life, went on a dinner cruise and saw the sun set past Waikiki, took a tour around Oahu…all in all, three fairly decent days.  

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On ‎04‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 12:28 PM, Jack Shaftoe said:

If their best is literally doing nothing to help Buffy for seven years, one wonder what their worst might be.

So what, he is obviously much stronger than a Slayer and an inexperienced one is not going to be as good in a fight as Buffy anyway.

And yet they didn't manage to find it for months and had to resort to interrogating Spike and Tara.

More a question of guiding the Slayers over times, like the Vorlons if you watched B5. They still knew each Slayer came with an expiry date. The new Slayer could be called elsewhere than Sunnydale, the idea is to stop the line. I figure Glory's minions can only track Dawn to a certain location, they need snakey wakey to be precise.  

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On ‎04‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 1:36 PM, Halting Hex said:

She already had that, it was called "Willow", and it developed organically, right from the pilot, instead of being forced into Buffy and everyone else's minds (probably killing poor Joyce) by the Meddlesome Monks.

First of all, if you're doing heroism to get "a prize", then you're NOT a hero.  (David Gerrould had a great essay on this in one of his Star Trek books.)  Secondly, Buffy already has her "prize"…that would be Willow and Xander, as she acknowledges in The Wish. (And not only do they save each other emotionally, but they save each other physically [without Buffy coming to Sunnydale, the three of them die a combined five deaths in that episode alone], as Xander already has saved Buffy in our own dimension.)

 More precisely, the thought of having failed Dawn is what causes Buffy to go catatonic late in S5, and it's up to Willow to rouse Buffy from her delirium, which mostly consists of killing Dawnie.  Meanwhile, Dawn herself is too busy trying to keep from dying of boredom in that endless Ben/Glory morphing scene…

He wasn't trying to be funny about the eye on his own (he'd already done that, going back to hospital scene in Empty Places), he was complaining that Giles kept making "jokes" about the eye.  So either Giles has been a total asshole to Xander while we haven't been looking (and has been driving Xander up the wall by doing so), or Xander is just "kidding" about Giles doing this, and thus slandering Giles's reputation when the G-Man isn't around to defend himself.  Either possibility rather sucks.

I didn't say that Lindsey wasn't getting sympathy from WR&H, the poster I quoted was saying that Mutant Enemy had spent more time on a sympathetic treatment of Lindsey's loss of his hand (those sad glances at his guitar in Dead End, and indeed the whole episode) "which he totally deserved to lose" (and this despite Lindsey being nothing more than a subvilllain) than they'd spent on Xander, the second-billed character on all seven seasons of this show, suffering a far-worse and far-crueler injury here.

But you're probably right;  ME was no better than WR&H on this issue.  Yay?

  Reveal hidden contents

Except of course that they both come back and fight the next episode, which could easily have been as fatal for them as it was for Anya, Amanda, Chao An, or Spike.  So not such a brilliant plan, it turns out.

 

No, she followed the monk.  Otherwise it would have been much easier for them to find the Key once they were only searching in Sunnyhell, specifically, rather than having to search the entire planet.  But as Glory notes in Forever, they didn't even have the slightest clue what they were looking for, never mind where, until Ben semi-blabbed to Jinx.

  Reveal hidden contents

But as we see next episode, there are still (SOMEHOW?????) thousands of Potential Slayers all over the globe.  Any new Slayer might not have had the opportunity to realize she had been called (Buffy had experienced some weird dreams, but not noticed any physical changes, until Merrick showed up), much less travel to Sunnydale, before Caleb and the First had unleashed their apocalypse.

Also, given that no new Slayer was apparently called when Buffy died in The Gift, it seems unlikely that one would be called if she died now.  "The Slayer Line runs through Faith" was the party line, although I guess you would have to kill Faith to prove it.

OT: no, I was only out there for three days and didn't make it out to Waimanalo to see the original Robin's Nest.  (Which is apparently being demolished, btw.)  It was less than a month before I was scheduled to move from LA to South Carolina when I had my "you know, I've lived in LA all these years and never been to Hawai'i; it's probably a lot easier to get there from here than it will be from the East Coast" brainstorm.  So I barely squeezed it in; I went Saturday-Tuesday when I was moving the next Sunday.  Which is objectively crazy, as the movers were coming on Friday, but even the increased packing costs didn't make a dent the $1700+ I'd saved by traveling from the Left Coast.  (Would have been even more if I hadn't dithered until I needed to book my return through Tacoma, but even so. Or if the stupid movers hadn't broken my TV…)  

Hectic, but fun.  Went to Pearl Harbor, went parasailing, went to an Aloha festival, went to a Luau, went on a submarine to view the deep-sea life, went on a dinner cruise and saw the sun set past Waikiki, took a tour around Oahu…all in all, three fairly decent days.  

Willow the Skinner? Buff loves Willow but there's no comparison to Dawnie, "Get away from her!"

Yes, Buffy gets her Scoobs and her new daddy and not one but arguably 2 sisters, she just had to die twice to earn them. We have see the minions use magic to track the Key in Sunnydale, why not to it? We don't know exactly how the Slayer line now works and neither does the First? 

 LA to South Carolina?  That'll be a change of pace! 

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Well, I'm still rooting for USC…just a different USC.  (University of South Carolina rather than University of Southern California.)  Yes, not as fast-paced but I'm actually closer to downtown here, so that's relative.  And I don't need to start conjuring gold coins to buy a house here.  (Seriously, the only way I could afford anything out there would be find an extra "0" on my bank balance.  Or perfect credit, or a gigantic income…)

9 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Willow the Skinner? Buff loves Willow but there's no comparison to Dawnie, "Get away from her!"

Yes, Buffy's love for Willow is real, where Dawn is forced and fake. Anything Buffy thinks she "feels" for Dawn is programming, and nothing more. And Willow's own actions in the Monkverse may just as well be part of those same manipulations, we'll never know.

Also, Willow's a hero, who was driving away centuries-old vampires barely 24 hours after learning about the supernatural.  Whereas Dawnie, despite "growing up" in the know (allegedy) keeps getting damseled again and again, through her own stupidity and is good for nothing more than screeching and whining. For almost two years.  (I mean, you'd think she could make a contribution to the research, at least.)

9 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

We don't know exactly how the Slayer line now works and neither does the First? 

True, we don't have all the evidence to make a pure empirical judgment here.  But everything we do have contradicts the assumption that Buffy's death would call a new Slayer, so why not kill Buffy and see how that works out?  What's the worst case scenario…there are still two Slayers, but now Faith is in charge?  Wow, that's a lot of disrespect that Caleb and the First are showing if they just assume that Buffy is so incompetent that any clueless newbie would be a major improvement.

Edited by Halting Hex
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5 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

 What's the worst case scenario…there are still two Slayers, but now Faith is in charge?  Wow, that's a lot of disrespect that Caleb and the First are showing if they just assume that Buffy is so incompetent that any clueless newbie would be a major improvement.

Exactly! If the First really wanted to make their plan work, first the Bringers should kill off some random potentials (those that have Watchers and are being trained). If you don't do too many, and they are in scattered locations, the Watchers Council probably wouldn't even make a connection between deaths (after all, slayers-in-training probably die all the time, from tackling demons they aren't ready for). Then, you kill Buffy--who would just be expecting regular demons and not be on guard yet. Faith is in prison and not a threat. Even if another Slayer were called on the death of Buffy, you've got an inexperienced Slayer, who may be nowhere near Sunnydale and who just thinks she was plain old Chosen. The First now can get a foothold in Sunnydale and spread beyond it. Once the WC figures out what's going on (and try to bring in the new Slayer to stop it), it's too late. Even if Faith breaks out of prison, kill her and now you have two inexperienced Slayers. Even if Faith is not killed, she certainly "doesn't play well with others", and therefore probably can't defeat the First. No need to destroy the WC--they're no help. Only thing they might be able to help with is research, but there's nothing to research!

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22 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Well, I'm still rooting for USC…just a different USC.  (University of South Carolina rather than University of Southern California.)  Yes, not as fast-paced but I'm actually closer to downtown here, so that's relative.  And I don't need to start conjuring gold coins to buy a house here.  (Seriously, the only way I could afford anything out there would be find an extra "0" on my bank balance.  Or perfect credit, or a gigantic income…)

Yes, Buffy's love for Willow is real, where Dawn is forced and fake. Anything Buffy thinks she "feels" for Dawn is programming, and nothing more. And Willow's own actions in the Monkverse may just as well be part of those same manipulations, we'll never know.

Also, Willow's a hero, who was driving away centuries-old vampires barely 24 hours after learning about the supernatural.  Whereas Dawnie, despite "growing up" in the know (allegedy) keeps getting damseled again and again, through her own stupidity and is good for nothing more than screeching and whining. For almost two years.  (I mean, you'd think she could make a contribution to the research, at least.)

True, we don't have all the evidence to make a pure empirical judgment here.  But everything we do have contradicts the assumption that Buffy's death would call a new Slayer, so why not kill Buffy and see how that works out?  What's the worst case scenario…there are still two Slayers, but now Faith is in charge?  Wow, that's a lot of disrespect that Caleb and the First are showing if they just assume that Buffy is so incompetent that any clueless newbie would be a major improvement.

Buffy loves Dawn more than anything and vice versa, look at her speech in The Gift. Willow gets damselled plenty of times too.  

17 hours ago, illdoc said:

Exactly! If the First really wanted to make their plan work, first the Bringers should kill off some random potentials (those that have Watchers and are being trained). If you don't do too many, and they are in scattered locations, the Watchers Council probably wouldn't even make a connection between deaths (after all, slayers-in-training probably die all the time, from tackling demons they aren't ready for). Then, you kill Buffy--who would just be expecting regular demons and not be on guard yet. Faith is in prison and not a threat. Even if another Slayer were called on the death of Buffy, you've got an inexperienced Slayer, who may be nowhere near Sunnydale and who just thinks she was plain old Chosen. The First now can get a foothold in Sunnydale and spread beyond it. Once the WC figures out what's going on (and try to bring in the new Slayer to stop it), it's too late. Even if Faith breaks out of prison, kill her and now you have two inexperienced Slayers. Even if Faith is not killed, she certainly "doesn't play well with others", and therefore probably can't defeat the First. No need to destroy the WC--they're no help. Only thing they might be able to help with is research, but there's nothing to research!

Buffy and Faith are the most successful Slayers of all time, even Drac admires her and Faith would certainly leave prison if she needed to as we see in s4. The First's killing of the Potentials would certainly have raised suspicions even without magic and dreams. 

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7 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

The First's killing of the Potentials would certainly have raised suspicions even without magic and dreams

Not if they don't do too many. If fact, Buffy doesn't even have a "potential killed" dream until the third one (that we know of) is killed. And even then, she does nothing about it. It takes CWDP before Buffy realizes the First is involved (bad move, First!).

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Quote

Buffy and Faith are the most successful Slayers of all time

How exactly is Faith more successful than say Nikki Wood who survived for years? Or from your average Slayer who doesn't decide that going dark would be kind of cool, for that matter?

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On 11/25/2018 at 5:21 AM, Halting Hex said:

And I really hope that Xander was just kidding about Giles making jokes about Xan's missing eye, but given how much of an ass Giles was being, both throughout the season in general, and to Xander specifically in the DawnVerse, I can't exactly be sure.  The writers might have thought they were going for "friendly banter" and not "cruelly mocking Xander's permanently disfiguring injury", much like the "gallows humor" excuse that gets deployed elsewhere. 

So which do we think it was, actually?  Had Giles actually been making eye jokes ("My, Andrew's arse certainly does look luscious in those trousers!  Care to borrow my binoculars to check him out? Oh…I guess not. Never mind." "Goodness, Xander!  I came down last night for a cup of tea…Willow really needs to learn to keep quiet, tongue stud or not…and I caught quite the 'floor show', I must say!  I guess you and Anya must have been able to 'patch' things up, ha-ha!" "What's useless and has one eye?  No, not Spike's penis, try again…"), or is Xander just being a smarty-pants and not caring that he's basically insulting Giles behind Giles's back?  Which flavor of suck is it, do you think?

Vote early, vote often!

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The last Xander/Willow scene in the series (Empty Places) is truly heartbreaking.

The last Buffy/Xander scene OTOH is purely disgusting.

As much as I'm unhappy about what Joss and the others did to the show, I'm very thankful it isn't the other way around.

As a fan of both the show and Xander, I cannot find any proper word except for "disgusting" to describe my emotions. There are plenty of Buffy apologists out there who like to think Buffy did it all for Xander's (and Dawn's) own good. The writers probably intended it to look like that, but I never bought the whole concept. They just fail to convince me Buffy tries to get rid of her once best male friend and her younger sister because she only wants to "protect" both of them.

Friends and the fight are the only things keeping Xander in Sunnydale for all these years. He could have walked away to live a normal a relatively happy life any time if his own well-being was his top priority. But he made a choice to stay and help Buffy/Willow despite the lack of superpowers. Xander's never jumped off the train when the Apocalypse was knocking at the door, no matter what. Xander knows it. Buffy knows it too. And yet she views her one-eyed friend as a dead weight since he cannot properly perform the job of the Slayer's sidekick.

Although I truly hate the way Buffy treats Willow thoughout the season (from assuming Willow was behind the flaying of a guy in STSP to bashing the girl behind her back in Get it Done), she's still important enough to remain the part of the team. Even as a mere "gun" or "most powerful weapon". Xander doesn't have the same privilege. "If I can't use your powers than I don't need you around" - that's Buffy's attitude as of 2003. Shouldn't freaking seven years mean something, after all?

Unfortunately, neither Xander here

Spoiler

nor Willow in Chosen

is allowed to say what both of them have every right to say: "Fuck you, Buffy".

The first season's finale: Xander, despite having only few months of experience in the field, takes active part in the episode's climax saving Buffy's life in the process. The final season's penultimate ep: regardless of seven years in the fight Xander is sent many miles away from the battlefield

Spoiler

and even though the whole "let's get Dawn out of town" venture fails eventually, he's still not allowed to fight side by side with Buffy. Just like Giles and Willow.


And even if at this moment most of us do not give a hoot about Xander/Willow and their feelings, the whole thing is quite disgusting with regard to precious Dawnie. What happened to your "I don't want to protect [Dawn] from the world" resolve, Buff? Seems like exactly the same thing that happened to your old promise to "never not talk" to Willow (and Xander) years ago. And what's worse is Buffy not having the guts to talk to her own friggin' sister. She asks Xander to commit a crime, to kidnap Dawn thus violating her freedom to choose. I feel nothing but burning hatred for Buffy for making Xander (Xander!!!) of all people her partner in crime. 

Spoiler

Just like I despise her for asking Willow to do the Activation spell, i.e. violate countless girls all over the world, in the subsequent episode.

Buffy's motives may be noble, but the history of her relationship with both Dawn and the Scoobs throughout the past 20+ episodes somehow proves oherwise...

Edited by lembergwatcher
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On 4/3/2019 at 2:18 PM, lembergwatcher said:

I do think our Rupert "Biggus Dickus" Giles aka Tweed Boy or Mr. Tweedy Pants made those jokes about Xander's injury.

To quote a  perfectly wonderful line of narration from an issue of The Defenders:  "And wouldn't you know it?…He's absolutely right!"

Was looking something else up in the transcript, and found…this:

Quote

XANDER (stands): And you know what's even worse? All the stupid "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" jokes. "Hey, Xander, so no more fun and games, huh?"

DAWN (rolls her eyes, sighs): Giles was just having fun with you.

So much for all my hypothesizing above about how maybe Xander was just joking, maybe he was claiming Giles made jokes about the eye because that would be so out of character for Giles to do that it would qualify as absurdist humor, but…no.  We have independent confirmation from Key-Face herself that Giles was mocking Xander's recent and painful and permanently disabling injury.

Fuck you all.  Seriously, fuck you all.

Inside the story, fuck Giles for being such an asshole that he makes Spike seem sensitive by comparison.  Outside the story, fuck the writers for treating Giles so poorly for the sake of a "joke".  Giles, who kept Xander's secret about the hyena possession.  Giles, who refused to wag his finger at Buffy in the Citroen. Giles, who, um…talked Willow through her frog fear.  (Okay, weak.  But the point is that he used to be very far removed from the asshole they imagine him to be now.)

And fuck Dawn long and hard for how she reacts on hearing that Xander, in addition to his physical injury, in addition to all the psychological stress he's under (he goes from this to complaining about how he'll have to take the driver's test over and over because the injury prevents automatic renewal of his license), Xander is deeply and emotionally hurt that his friends appear to lack empathy about all of this.  And what does Dawn do?  Does she offer him comfort, support, solace?  

Of course not.  She rolls her eyes and sighs and tries to brush the whole situation under the rug.  I mean, honestly, FUCK HER.

Compared to this, I almost am willing to give Dawn a pass on what I was originally so upset about, the realization that Dawn didn't just kill a perfectly innocent and loving Miss Kitty Fantastico, she killed WILLOW'S cat!  She killed the only living reminder of Tara that Willow had!  (And not that I gave much of a shit about Tara, but to imagine this happening after all Willow had been through is just nauseating…)

But of course, maybe Dawn "only" maimed Miss Kitty; the dialogue is unclear.  And maybe she did her Kitty-shooting before Tara died and the subject is only coming up now; we haven't seen Miss Kitty since Family, after all.  So arguably it isn't quite as horrific as Giles rubbing salt into Xander's recent wound and Dawn trying to change the subject because "Xander and his griefy 'poor-me' mood swings—so, so tired of it."  

But still…she FUCKING (probably) KILLED WILLOW'S CAT!!!

Where's Doc when you need him?  Bleed that bitch… 😠 

(Why, yes, I've typed all of this with MY baby snugly in my lap.  Why do you ask? ❤️  )

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10 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Outside the story, fuck the writers for treating Giles so poorly for the sake of a "joke".  Giles, who kept Xander's secret about the hyena possession.  Giles, who refused to wag his finger at Buffy in the Citroen. Giles, who, um…talked Willow through her frog fear.

I stopped liking Giles after Becoming, Part 1. Then again, Tweed Boy has always been an asshole to Xander, he treated Wesley like shit and wasn't particularly good father figure to both Buffy and Willow.  Therefore I'm not shocked or surprised with him mocking Xander's injury.

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13 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Xander is deeply and emotionally hurt that his friends appear to lack empathy about all of this.  And what does Dawn do?  Does she offer him comfort, support, solace?  

Of course not.  She rolls her eyes and sighs and tries to brush the whole situation under the rug.  I mean, honestly, FUCK HER.

Which, I gotta say, is quite odd since Dawnie looked oh so concerned for Xander in Empty Places. OTOH it's only Xander. He has nothing of value and he isn't Buffy's powerful weapon - so why should his friends care? They didn't seem to be too worried about Xander dying from mystical syphilis in Pangs, after all.

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On 5/8/2019 at 3:17 PM, lembergwatcher said:

[Dawn's apparent indifference to Xander's upset] is quite odd since Dawnie looked oh so concerned for Xander in Empty Places.

What, the S7 writers couldn't be bothered to keep consistent characterization (from all of two episodes ago) if it would get in the way of a "comedy" bit?  And you're…what, shocked and appalled? They're evil!

(Okay, more likely bored and running out the clock and, to steal a different Spike line, "paralyzed by not caring very much".  But still, the descent into this sort of hackery is depressing, to say the least.)

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On 5/8/2019 at 8:24 AM, Halting Hex said:

But still…she FUCKING (probably) KILLED WILLOW'S CAT!!!

Where's Doc when you need him?  Bleed that bitch… 😠 

I guess Doc is alive and well, and planning his revenge on Scooby clan. No way you can kill a guy by throwing him off some tower if he's already proven to be immune to swords.

Btw, speakinng of kitties... Here's photo of Michelle taken around 2008 at some feline-related event.

gettyimages-110008819-2048x2048.thumb.jpg.d6e7875028201795c1b41baa3eaa6753.jpg

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(edited)
On 5/8/2019 at 1:24 AM, Halting Hex said:

Giles, who kept Xander's secret about the hyena possession.  Giles, who refused to wag his finger at Buffy in the Citroen. Giles, who, um…talked Willow through her frog fear.

Okay, it's taken me more than three years to come up with a better example, but I've got it now:  Giles did a wonderful job of soothing Willow in the aftermath of the "Lesbian Street Cred" argument in Tough Love.

Which, I grant you, is pretty much the only time Giles acts like a friend to Willow in the whole of the Dawnverse (barring whatever they got up to…or down to [bamp-chicka-bamp-bamp!] in Devon), but as I've noted before, Rebecca Rand Kirshner was the last one to get the "only Tara cares about Willow" memo, so she wrote great Buffy/Willow scenes in Out of My Mind and Listening to Fear  and the referenced G/W scene in 5.19.

(Of course, by Tabula Rasa, Kirshner does have Willow flagellating herself about the resurrection spell and Xander doing about as much as Anya to take his share of the blame off of her shoulders, but those Mutant Enemy re-education camps are scarily effective, I'm told. And she does make an effort at X/W bonding in Help, even if that story about the hammer and the nail makes me want to crucify myself, just to stay awake…)

But still.  "The quarrel is ended" >> "'Don't warn the tadpoles'?"  JMO.

Edited by Halting Hex
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On 7/17/2022 at 7:06 AM, Halting Hex said:

(barring whatever they got up to…or down to [bamp-chicka-bamp-bamp!] in Devon)

I don't think whatever Giles and Willow got up to... or down to in Devon (especially bamp-chicka-bamp-bamp) required our Tweedboy to act particularly friendly... What if he was rude and Ripper-like?

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Buffy's magical, mystical scythe does not look ancient -- it looks like one of Sammy Hagar's guitars.

Caleb suffers from Negan disease of the mouth -- he just can't stop talking.

I guess at this point the Scoobs have just assumed everyone has evacuated Sunnydale.

Edited by mmecorday
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10 hours ago, mmecorday said:

Buffy's magical, mystical scythe does not look ancient -- it looks like one of Sammy Hagar's guitars.

Well, to be fair, to the Scoobs, Sammy Hagar is ancient.  

Quote

I guess at this point the Scoobs have just assumed everyone has evacuated Sunnydale.

Which makes total sense, given that Buffy threw a straggler out of his house literally last night.  What, that guy was the only homeowner in a city of 38.500 who owned a gun and was possessive about his property?  Doubtful.

[The writers'] logic does not resemble our Earth logic, to quote Queen B herself, from earlier, happier days.

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On 1/5/2023 at 11:11 PM, Halting Hex said:

Buffy threw a straggler out of his house literally last night.  What, that guy was the only homeowner in a city of 38.500 who owned a gun and was possessive about his property?  Doubtful.

Although…it would be hilarious if 2nd Amendment Bob was the only homeowner in the entire town who decided he'd rather fight than ditch, and Buffy somehow managed to find him, in an otherwise entirely-deserted town.  And you thought we were done with the ridiculous plot contrivances?

I mean, it's not much compared to Caleb digging out Buffy's specially-destined superweapon, or the "Guardian" who claimed to have been watching Buffy all this time (yet somehow didn't know her name), but still.

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