Gingerbread

I didn't like this episode the first time I saw it. I know why--it is the darkest one yet, and the first time I watched the series, I didn't know how dark it would go. Joyce and Mrs. Rosenberg--first and only appearance of Willow's mom--join ranks with other parents to "take back Sunnydale from the monsters and the witches and the Slayers" and let the grownups run things. That means taking all Giles' books from the library for a mass book burning, providing fuel for burning Willow, Amy and Buffy.

The opening has Joyce wanting to see Buffy slay, to accept what Buffy is. Instead, between the reality of that and finding two dead children, she mobilizes to protect Buffy and Sunnydale by getting rid of the evil--which, ironically, includes Buffy. Before the end, we find out that the adults are influenced by a Hansel and Gretel type demon, which is dealt with and the parents are back to their willfully ignorant selves by the end.

Joyce is upset seeing the dead bodies, and Buffy holds her and comforts her--a counterpart to Buffy finding Joyce's body in season 5. Buffy is the adult in the scene, and does for her mother what she will not allow anyone to do for her when her mother's body is found.

The contrast between Willow's mom and Buffy's is overt; Joyce is trying hard and is aware of Buffy's life; Willow's mom can't even talk to her--didn't even realize she'd gotten her hair cut months before.

Darkness: the parents are attacking their children, Giles is essentially powerless, Oz and Xander work together--an important step in healing their Willow-rift, but ultimately not aiding Willow or Buffy. And although Willow plays at calling forth dark magic to try to get her mom's attention, Amy really does call on dark magic to save herself, turning into Amy the rat who will wrek havoc in season 6.

So what's it about? Still thinking, but we see the Mayor and Principal working together, which is not a good thing. And we get a hint that the good v evil can include humans on either side--and that even the kids can be morally ambiguous. Ultimately, I don't think this is an important episode, but I may revise that--and it does start working darker themes and real death in the mix. Even though the kids' were real....Joyce's reaction was. Big picture, that matters more.

Becoming, pt 2 (I'm awake now)

I said that the episode is about the power of love, in both the negative and positive forms. Here's the list:

• Good--Because Spike loves Dru, he works with his enemy to get Dru back from Angel and protect her. This is a beginning (remember my Janus reference) because he goes beyond defining himself as evil, switching sides to align with the Slayer. Yep, a trend begins.
• Good--The power of love is possibly why Willow wakes from her coma. Xander gives a big speech to her, saying he loves her, and she starts rousing. She asks for Oz right away, though. (Closure of her infatuation with Xander? We'll see)
  
• Bad--Because Giles loves Jenny, he tells "her" (really Dru magicked to be Jenny) the secret of how Angel can wake the demon. He resisted torture; he can't resist love.
• Bad--Because Joyce is so concerned about Buffy (mother's love), she argues with Buffy to make Buffy stay home, not fight Angel--which leads to Buffy running away. Joyce said don't come back;Buffy didn't,
  
• Bad--Buffy has to balance her love of Angel with her duty; love loses. Buffy realizes that Angel is back, Angelus gone, and she still kills him to close the portal.
• Bad, maybe Biggest Bad--Because Xander loves Buffy (and he's proven repeatedly that he does, it's not just infatuation), he believes Angel is dangerous to the world and Buffy. Obviously, jealousy plays a big part here, but I'm willing to credit Xander with seeing the Angel's potential evil, SOOOO....he lies to Buffy for the second time in their relationship. He delivers Willow's message, but instead of "delay as long as possible, I'm trying the spell again," Xander claims Willow said, "Kick his ass." Symbolically, even happy, faithful, optomistic Willow has seemingly given up on Angel, sealing his fate with Buffy? Perhaps. It's noteworthy that the phrasing is very un-Willow-like. Xander would say that, not Willow. But Buffy is focused on the mission and doesn't question the false note.

Other Xander-centric note: He's evolved this season, maturing. In this episode, he comfortably, casually calls Cordy "honey," he pulls Giles to safety, he's calm and dependable---except the lying, of course. The first episode of next season, he's goofus and immature. Not sure what happened over the summer, but.... And the lying will come back to haunt him, season 7.

Blood is the key that opens and closes the portal....hm...that seems vaguely familar, like the premise of season 5, maybe...It's done differently, but on retrospect, it's odd that only Spike understands it in season 5.

Isolation and loneliness are a major theme here. Ultimately, the slayer is alone. Whistler says than, and Buffy ends the show watching as an outsider before leaving. There's more to think about....

Oh, and Kendra's dead, killed by Dru--which activates Faith, but we don't know that yet. And Spike is there with Buffy when Joyce finds out that Buffy is the Slayer. Joyce trying to make small talk with Spike even after realizing when and where she met him (as he was trying to kill Buffy early in the season, attacking the high school) is a marvelously fun bit. We find out later that Spike has great affection for Joyce, and that even when they are enemies, Buffy and Spike can do some of the facial shorthand communication stuff that becomes even more evident later.

"School Hard"

Spike's here--and there's going to be a little less ritual and a lot more partying.

The "Buffyverse," a storyline with a rich history to draw from and a berth of characters and incarnations, is finally becoming evident. The characters are starting to jell, and (I think) the major themes explored throughout the rest of the series have been introduced, at least briefly. There are still more characters to come--even important characters--but the structure of the Buffyverse is fairly well established even though people, relationships, and storylines still mature.

With that said, here's my quick list of important stuff

• If your name involves time, for instance, Calendar, it's a hint that you can count the number of days (or episodes) you'll last.
  
• This episode has one of the first overt mentions of religion, I think, when Willow tells Cordelia to pray as they are hiding in the closet from the vamp attack. Even though religious imagery abounds, like when Xander used the cross to make Angel listen and cooperate last season, religious references are worthing noting when they happen. In this case, when nothing else seems possible, prayer is last resort--and then, Cordy's prayer is humorous and ironic.
• Spike claims to feel more "manly" when he uses weapons, but what this means is subject to interpretation. She knows he's not a man, he knows she knows--it could be meant ironically humorous, or to underline that as a non-man, he doesn't need a weapon (his speech to her in "Fool for Love" about how a vamp always has his weapon, but she has to reach for hers is an interesting contrast.). Note that he's lying/manipulating the truth in that scene--the last slayer didn't beg for her life (we see flashback in a later season), Angel is his grandsire (although in another show he clarifies: Dru made me a vampire, you made me a monster, he tells Angel)
• Joyce stops Spike. After hitting him on the head with the axe, she says something about not hurting her daughter. Irony/foreshadowing: we know Spike has a weakness for mothers and had a loving relationship with his. And Joyce and Spike end up getting along well, even though she knows he's a vamp. (Contrast that with Angel, who she didn't especially like even when she didn't know he was a vamp; knowing it didn't improve the situation any either)
• "A slayer with friends and family...never heard of that before," or something close. Spike makes that point two times, underlining how unusual that is. It keeps her alive, he says later--and it throws his plans for a loop; Xander gets Angel as reinforcments to help, and Joyce bops Spike and stops the crisis du jour.
  
• Foreshadowing: When Spike sets up the vamp attack at the Bronze, it's so he can see Buffy's fighting style. Buffy doesn't have a stake--a spike--on her person (and how often does that happen in 7 years?? Once, I think) so Xander dashes to her purse, grabs her stake, and throws it to her. Buffy then dusts the vamp, and Spike appludes the show. Notice that Spike gets to see how emeshed Buffy is with her friends--and symbolically, Xander has handed her (or thrown her) to another man, the one who ultimately is a bigger threat to his relationship with Buffy than Angel is.
• Spike's image is all emotion, red hot. Where Angel is dressed in black, or black and white, blood red is spike's color--in this season, I think he's always got some red on somewhere. His speech in season 5 about blood--of course it's blood, that's the color of life...etc--underlines how important blood is to him, and of course to all vampires. The color of life, of passion--that's Spike's trademark color, at least for now.
• Despite how strongly Spike is identified with emotion, impatience, and the Id, notice the strategizing and planning. He wants to see Buffy fight before fighting her, he approaches the Annointed to gain an "in" there before incinerating the Anointed. His talk with Angel isn't about bonding, but digging for info--but Spike is as much about deliberation and power as about emotion.
• Spike is as tied into pop culture as the Scoobies. He calls Angel his "yoda," and he makes another few references just in the time between Angel and the fight with Buffy. He lives in the human world in many ways.
• Spike is gentle and caring towards Drusilla, his ill (mentally, primarily) partner. He's more overtly gentle than Angel is--at least towards their respectivie romantic interests--and that's even though Spike doesn't have a soul. Soul doesn't control empathy, at least totally.
  

That's the short version for now...

Episode Three: Witch

What does it mean to be a man? BtVS is usually cited as an exploration into girl power, and in interviews Whedon speaks eloquently about women's studies and his mission as a male feminist--but the flip side of that is exploring what it means to be a man in a post-patriarchal paradigm. That is never answered explicitly in BtVS--in fact, it's not even alluded to as a question--but hints of the issue pop up like prairie dogs every so often, quickly scanning the situation, then retreating. The third episode of the series, which completely leaves the whole "Master Ascending" metaplot, is overtly about girls and their mothers, but the "what does it mean to be a man" issue is raised in several times.

Does Xander accept being emasculated to be one of Buffy's "slayerettes?" Willow uses that term in this epsiode as she and Xander affirm that they are choosing to be by Buffy's side, choosing to be in danger and fight for right. Both X and Willow emphatically agree that they want to be "slayerettes" for Buffy. The feminization of Buffy's title, the Slayer, is at once both bonding them into a unit and somewhat linguistically demarcating them as weaker, as the female partners. But by embracing the designation, Xander becomes one of the gang and perhaps by being inclusive, "-ettes" loses the derogatory connotations that it might otherwise imply.

A couple other snippets of conversation stand out:

• Buffy, giddy under the influence of a weakening spell, is aided by Willow and Xander, refers to Xander as her "Xander-shaped friend," and says it's as if he's not even a boy because he's so nice and isn't just trying to date her (which he'd been trying to get the nerve up to do). Although the audience knows that he is still attracted to Buffy, she becomes the unattainable dream girl, as alluded to in season 6 by Xander's financee, who knows that Xander's first allegiance is to Buffy. To be a man in Buffy's life, he chooses to not be someone who she thinks of as "a guy." Both times when Xander does get a serious love interest, the females involved are not actually friends with Xander or, significantly, with Willow and Buffy. Is part of being a man in the next wave dependant on checking your hormones at the door?
• In an especially interesting exchange, Xander says that Willow is like his best guy friend, but who understands girls. Does Xander pick up on Willow's sexual ambiguity long before Willow realizes she's gay? (and before the writers decide that, based on interviews). And does having a friend of the opposite gender require that there be no sexual tension, that the "friendness" of the relationship completely trump any awareness of other vibes? (Willow and Xander's one epically mistimed kiss in season 2 almost proves how dangerous it is to imagine a physical relationship with your "friend." Do new age men have to only notice a female's intellectual attributes if they are to be real friends?
  
• All these seemingly emasculating concerns are juxtaposed against a plot line involving cheerleaders. Buffy, Cordelia, Amy and a bevy of others bounce around in short skirts, which Xander panting on the sidelines. Xander is obviously enjoying the view, but does Whedon unwittingly divide women into "my friend" (Buffy, who Xander chooses to not actively pursue so they can be friends) and "my eye candy," girls who he'd gape at and date, but not "friends" (When we get to season 3, we can argue about whether Xander buying newly-destitute Cordelia a prom dress is about friendship, or about something else; I'll argue that's not indicative of the depth of their relationship)
• If Giles is the role model for manhood in an age of female power, note that he both guides Buffy and takes orders from her (last episode he does that). He places himself in danger for her, and insures her safety as best he can--but always conceding that she's stronger and more able. And notably, Giles' only male friend (Ethan) is a destructive force in the Buffy-verse; Giles is only safe around women, it seems.
  

I'm realizing how much I'm writing about Xander in these early posts. That's curious; I have things to say about Willow, and about the Buffy/Joyce relationship, but...it's late. I'm done for tonight.