Goodbye, Iowa

This is Riley's coming of age, his coming to a crisis point. As Buffy puts it at the end, the underpinings of his world have fallen apart, and he's left with nothing...but she's wrong; he's got her scarf (or whatever the piece of fabric from her was). The end foreshadows that Riley has come to terms with Maggie's betrayal by choosing to align with Buffy. Even though he stalwartly defends Maggie through most of the episode, to the point of accusing Buffy of killing her, when he's faced not merely with the fact of Adam, but Adam's statements about how he and Riley are brothers, "Mother's two favorite sons," Riley rejects being one of Maggie's creations--which continues as we (and he) discover that, like Spike, he has an implant that Maggie used to "improve" him as well.

Is this Joss' updating of Frankenstein? Is Maggie the modern Dr. F? The parallels are obvious, especailly with the killing of the child. It's been a long time since I've read Shelley's classic, so maybe I need to along with this season....free ebooks, here I come!

If part of the subtext of Buffy is to explore what it means to be female, then by extension, this season is a more overt exploration of what it means to be human (via Adam) and male (via Riley and Initiative? Thinking about that.) Riley is more "All American Ken Doll" than any other character, something Buffy knew and chose; he was supposed to be the "boring boyfriend" than Anya told her she needed....even though it was in a comic, sentimental scene, with Anya emphasizing that Buffy couldn't have Xander, and Buffy confessing how crazy about Riley she was, even though he turned out to be G.I. Joe instead of Ken Doll.

Riley's a pysch grad student, yet his moments of introspection and analysis are very limited. It's becoming more clear that Riley is a man of action, a man who follows orders and doesn't question--but when the questioning comes, he deals with it quickly and without a lot of emo (bit change from Spike, and Angel, and...yea). If he's the ideal man, I need to watch for what that means.

And on the Willow front: maybe she hasn't had sex with Tara yet after all, but she did spend the night "doing magic." Willow emphasizes to Tara that she really likes being with her and isn't just using her like Capt. Planet---"by our powers combined.." Interesting: when Willow wants Tara to help with a spell that Tara is uncomfortable with, Tara obviously (to us) undercuts it; even here at the beginning, when it's fun and flirty and helpful magic, Tara questions if Willow is using magic appropriately. Foreshadowing.