What's My Line Pt 2

The second part focuses more: the Spike/Dru/Angel plot, and the Kendra is the seemingly perfect slayer plot. The other parts are there--Xander and Cordy kiss, Willow and Oz nerd-flirt ("I mock you with my monkey pants," is an awesome line. Oz is great)--but saving Angel and working with Kendra are prime.

Buffy was ambivalent about being the slayer; the backdrop of Career Week is to underscore Buffy's lack of choice. Kendra is trained, dedicated, able to laugh with Giles about the watcher journal because--unlike Buffy--Kendra has been raised to be a slayer. No family, no friends, calling Xander "sir"...if she's what a slayer is supposed to be, it's no wonder Giles is often frustrated. Buffy's jealous of Kendra (whining to Willow that Giles and Kendra "were vibing" and many snarky comments about The Slayers Handbook, which Buffy didn't get because....well, because.....Giles never did quite explain why Buffy was "a different case.")

Buffy tells Willow that maybe she should hand it over to Kendra, retire, quit. "Maybe I could lead a normal life," but when you're programmed to be a slayer, what would be normal? She claims to want that, yet is slightly jealous of the person who could make that possible. This topic will come up again, and again. In a sense, the resolution of it is what ends the series.

Here's the other thing I suspect this episode does: it gives us a framework for understanding that despite all the broodingly handsome angst Angel's famous for, the legacy of Angelus' badness is still around; we get a shadow of what he might have been like before he got his soul. Yea, we've gotten that with Jenny, too--but that's just the facts. And it's easy to decide that he's redeemed, that he has suffered enough. BUT...Angel liked "the preshow." He liked to torture, to torment. He created Drusilla's craziness and taught her to relish torturing her victims, playing with her food. After Dru torures Angel, he turns the tables on Spike, mentally instead of physically. Angelus seems to love mental games. We can excuse him because if he can provoke Spike into killing him before the ritual to heal Dru, he saves Buffy and Sunnydale, but in fact, Angel shows that even souled, he's adept at mind games. He doesn't mind hurting others for a good cause. With a soul, the good cause is to save people; without a soul, the good cause is to amuse himself. Same dynamic, though.

Emotion takes center stage in this episode. Kendra tells Buffy "emotions are weakness." Buffy argues that "emotions give me power," then demonstrates by insulting Kendra until Kendra's heated response leads Buffy to observe, "That's anger you're feeling." She continues: "Anger gives me fire; a slayer needs that." When Buffy and Spike start their relationship, I need to revisit that quote. It ties in to with "Walk through the Fire," the big centerpiece of the musical--And it explains in part why Buffy's not feeling things the end of season 5 and through 6 seems to be such a huge problem for her...maybe?

Then we go right from Buffy and Kendra's emotion talk to the scene where Spike is nearly overcome with anger, nearly staking Angel. Adding to the emo-cauldron is Xander and Cordelia, arguing fiercly, then kissing...and kissing. It's a full moon, and emotions are running wild (note: I think it's probably the last full moon before Oz goes wolfie, too)

Again, Willow is research-girl, but not much more. Xander gets a fairly big plot, the Bug guy going after he & Cordy, but Willow's in the library. She does get some byplay with Oz, but in screen time, not much; in plot terms, she's not even a subplot, just a recurring transitional blip. Watching to see when/if that really changes. Whendon et al have more of a sense of her as a character, but are pretty slow about developing her in plot/subplots. They still seem to know Xander a lot better.

And note to self: If I decide to do something about religion, the big battle takes place in a church after Spike has done a ritual with a cross.

And it ends without a group hug--Kendra doesn't hug--but she has started to redefine slayer a bit, and Buffy has started to accept her calling a bit, and we've got a bit more background for understanding this season's Big Bad--not Spike and Dru, as it may seem, but Angel. Very soon, now in fact...I think.