Family

Variations on the theme: this season, identity and family have been explored, now the theme reaches out to include Tara (and by extension, Willow, who has been underutilized so far this season). Tara has, understandably, been aware that she's not really a Scoobie. Even though she's been around for a season, Buffy and Xander can't think of a thing to get her for her birthday; they claim to not know her well enough.

By the end of the episode, we've found that Tara's own family is awful, and that she believed she was part demon. It's been established that she is officially part of the group, with everyone bonding together to save her from her father--even though she cast a spell that could have caused them to be killed by demons. She is forgiven and accepted, claimed as family.

Things to note: Spike had come to see Buffy killed, but helped save her (gee, imagine that), AND he is part of the process of "claiming" Tara--he's not a Scoobie, but he is. His intervention not only saved Buffy but also established that Tara's father was lying and she was not part demon. His integration from punch line to essential side man has started.

Also, Tara has misused magic, casting a spell for her benefit that impacts others. She is contrite that she did so, accepting that it was wrong. Willow--foreshadowing next season's issues--excuses and defends the use of magic to make Tara's pain less and life better. Tara has learned from her experience; Willow hasn't.

And, very importantly, Riley helps Buffy move in, then feels shut out and leaves, heading to Willy's bar to drink with vampires--looking for darkness? Leading into something? AND, equally importantly, the big love fest at the end that solidifies Tara (and Spike and Anya) as part of the expanded group--Riley's not there. He's on borrowed time. He knows it, too.

The Yoko Factor

Pivotal episode, in the "things that can't be unsaid" realm. The basic premise is simple: Adam will take care of Spike's chip if Spike helps deal with the Slayer. Getting her friends out of the way--and her distracted by the drama--is Spike's idea. In an insightful explanation, Spike explains that Yoko Ono didn't break up the Beatles, but they broke themselves up under the pressure of fame and time; that's his plan--plant a few seeds, and let them do the dirty work themselves.

It's been clear since season 2 that Spike understands psychology much more intuitively than the Scoobies realize; they discredit him because of his chosen image. But in the process of supplying them info about the Initiative--info which I think does turn out to be important, next episode, making him a double agent--he drops side comments to Giles, Xander and Willow that feed their basic insecurities and lead to a huge argument at the end of the episode, with Buffy walking out, implying that she can't count on Willow and Xander. Who is left? well...Riley--who ends the episode at Adam's lair, for purposes unclear (although avenging his friend Forrest's death seems likely).

Spike tweaks Giles by commenting on his uselessness and lack of control of Buffy--and, appropriately, Giles is singing Freebird when Spike finds him, foreshadowing not just what Spike talks about, but the season 6 song Standing and his ultimate leaving as Buffy's watcher. Giles spends the rest of the episode drunk, even giggling uproariously at the words "Fort Dix." Season four has been rough for Giles--no job, no standing, less than Batman's Alfred, he implies during the argument scene. Spike capitalizes on that.

In a masterful bit of triple-entrendre, Spike hints to Willow that her computer skills are weakening, that being a witch is laughable, and that being with Tara just a phase--because. like Faith, Spike realizes with only small hints that Willow and Tara are involved; something Buffy barely believes even when Willow told her, and Xander and Giles don't realize til the argument at the end of the episode. Willow falls for every one of the lines Spike throws, showing how vunerable to needing Buffy's approval she is. Again, the dialogue where Spike casually throws out those issues is intermixed with other content, making this just throw-away banter that hits home--amazing dialogue writing.

And Xander, who has been as much adrift as Giles this season, quickly believes that his friends think he should enlist. It's curious that no one asks why Spike was in conversations like that with other people--since when does Spike sit and chat? But he is integrated enough with the gang that they do all accept without question that Spike would know; his plan only works because they trust him. Again, they've forgotten that he's "evil." a point he's made repeatedly this season.

There's the whole Angel comes back, and Riley freaks because he thinks Buffy's leaving him for Angel subplot--important in the Riley/Buffy arc, maybe, because he now knows everything about Buffy and Angel (tying in well with Yoko, Xander spilled that by accident, thinking Buffy explained why Angel turned evil). That's as much finishing an arc from Angel as impacting this show, though--Buffy fans who also watched Angel had to see a semi-reconciliation after the serious break that happened on Angel when Angel gave Faith a second chance.

So what's it all about? Simple: in high school, they were without question a gang, committed to each other. Are they going to recommit, or are they going to float apart without regret as they grow up? Thus far in season 4, it seems that they are on a floating apart track--Riley doesn't really become a Scooby, Willow and Buffy don't like Anya, Xander feels like the others don't respect what he'd doing...which, in fairness, is nothing except hanging with Anya., and Willow is hiding her new relationship. Yep, they are going separate ways, to all appearances. All Spike did was tear the band-aid off the wounds.

And....to be continued....

The I in Team

I've procrastinated about writing about this episode....not because it's so seminal or baffling, just....there's a lot going on, but it's mainly plot level. This episode is more soap opera structure, multiple storylines that only tangentially impact each other at this point, but all building towards further plot complications. Nothing is resolved in this episode; there's no satisfying "win" for the Scoobies, but the promise of more Big Bad action is clear--and this is the episode where the season metaplot really starts. All the players are in place, and they've introduced and established the Initiative, Riley, Oz's departure, Anya, Maggie, even Adam. We're pretty fair into the season for the big picture to just be emerging, but that becomes more the modus operandi in the later seasons (Willow isn't revealed as the Big Bad until the last couple episodes in season six; season 7, it seems like the Bringers, then Caleb, then....underlying Big Bad.).

The title for this episode is an onion: obvious, Buffy joins the Initiative (Note, it starts with an I, and is a Team), but it's clear that she is not good at being a Team Member--there's too much "I" in her makeup (which ties in with Giles' insistence to Kendra and the Council that Buffy can't be treated like the other slayers, that she doesn't fit the subservient pattern). A couple brief conversations with Riley where it's clear that he doesn't question, he does what "the team," usually Maggie, tell him because he's a team player just emphasizes Buffy's difference as well as setting up Riley's loss of innocence.

Riley knows he is part of the good guys, and he trusts without question that his leaders--Maggie--are doing everything for the greater good. Hence, he doesn't need to question. Just act. In Maggie and Riley's eyes, Giles is wrong for fostering the collaborative approach that he has permitted with Buffy (and the Scoobies--note that slayers are NOT team creatures, usually--flashback to Kendra's amazement about Buffy having friends and help).

So....Buffy, who has been the core of the Scooby team, has left that affilation (or so it seems based on her lack of connection emotionally and in daily ways with the others) in favor of Riley...not the first time she's chosen a man over her friends, notice. Season three had large helpings of Angel-secretiveness and pulling away, too.

But everyone is, in some manner, exploring connection and team:

• Spike starts off the episode by declaring that he's bad, and he will not come running if "teen witches' spells go wonky" or "Xander cuts a new tooth," cutting ties with the group even as Giles is there in the background trying to offer Spike status and involvement. What exactly Giles was intending is never made clear, as Spike is rude and dismissive, closing all discussion....until, of course, Spike is shot with a "tracer" and shows up at Giles door for help. A smidgen of Giles' hardass background--a hint of Ripper--comes through as he neogotiates with Spike about why Giles should help him. (The chemistry between those two characters is interesting; I wish Joss did a bit more with it...well, the whole season 7 Giles plotting to kill Spike excepted, I guess.) This episode makes it clear that although Spike refuses to fit into the Scooby team, he is part of the gang in more than a peripheral manner.
  
• Willow's turned gay--she's left the Scooby team with her own secret, and it's only later that the significance of this episode is clear. Tara, a stuttering, shy misfit, has been in most of the season, but just as "a witchy friend," filling a gap for Willow because Tara has more background in ways. But the scene where Buffy, after spending the night with Riley in one of the more graphically sexual scenes in the series, comes back to the room only to find that Willow has been out all night too. Buffy is so keyed into herself that she misses Willow's evasiveness and unease about saying where she was; Buffy isn't a Scooby at that point, isn't thinking as Willow's best friend. When Giles calls Willow for help with Spike's tracer, it's an affirmation that Giles is still assuming the Scoobies exist and function, but based on Willow and Buffy....that's shortsighted.
  
• Xander is floundering, and because he has no job, no Scooby imperative--Anya is with him constantly, and he hangs out with Giles, who is equally at loose ends. Xander's foray into selling the granola/power bars--which no one likes, and he justifies by explaining that he needs to buy pretty things for Anya (who embraces capitalism with a vengeance...so to speak!) Xander can't hold onto the sense of gang that they had; it's too clear that Willow and Buffy have other interests (and, as the poker game makes clear, Willow feels left out from the Anya/Xander vibe, too--making her relationship with Tara more likely, as well. Tara needs her friendship; Buffy and Xander don't)

BUT--pesto chango. The point of this episode may be to shake up Riley and make it clear that the Initiative (read: Maggie) has spawned the Big Bad: Adam, the cyborg-demon-human that Maggie has created and Riley has inadvertently helped with by supplying parts, never questioning what he was doing. Maggie reveals herself as evil--as not really being part of the Team, in once sense--when Riley finds that she has set up Buffy to get killed. The farm boy's world is rocked, and he's questioning everything. Buffy--who had been enthusiastic about the Initiative, barely considering the ramifications of that for the Scooby gang, is now Maggie's sworn enemy--and Maggie is dead...but by Adam. not Buffy.

One other curious thing: during a big fight scene, the graphic sex scene with Riley and Buffy is intercut. That's a technique that is unique to this episode, I think....I can think of times that things which we happening simulataneously are intercut, but the fighting and the sex couldn't be simulataneious--in fact, when Buffy asks Riley at the end of the fight, "what now," the audience knows exactly where they end up--and that conclusion of that sequence of events is when we find out that Buffy spent the night with Riley. Why they chose to juxtapose the action of the two scenes is curious. In a later season---five or six---Spike needles Buffy about the sexual thrill of battleing demons, declaring that it just primes the pump, or something similar--and Buffy vehemently denies it. The filming here may be the first exploration of that idea, which is pivotal in parts of season six....maybe.

The most important point: they have been losing the "team" experience and "team" feel this season, and the barely interlocking plots are designed to emphasize that; the end-of=-season melding that requires all their gifts to beat Adam also reaffirms that they are still a "team," not just the "I."

Now, on to the next episode, which continues the soap opera feel, if I remember right.

Revelations

Yes, more than one revelation. The obvious one is that Angel is alive, and Buffy's been lying to everyone about her whereabouts when she's been stealing time with him.

Some people might argue that another revelation is that Mrs. Post is an evil former watcher--maybe, but that's really too simple, too tied to a single episode plot line. That revelation isn't worth the time and energy, I think.

So.....hmmmmm......well, Xander and Willow have a secret--they are attracted to each other and "accidently" kissing every chance they get, but that isn't revealed, so that's not a revelation...

How about this: Buffy's tragic flaw, the heroic blemish that will ultimately define her, is very evident here, I think for one of the first times. Hubris. She believes that the way she chooses to do things is the only way: she "had to" keep Angel a secret. No, she really didn't. She seemed to hope that it would not come to light, which means when it finally did, the situation was compounded by her friends' feelings of betrayal. And, as will be her pattern later, if people disagree with her decisions, she turned it back on them. She claims that Xander is motivated by jealousy of Angel, not from a desire to keep his friends safe. She apologizes to an obviously upset Giles for not telling, but her subtext is "I'm sorry you don't understand why I thought this was best."

Giles is subtle, but important here. He's very disappointed in Buffy, and begins questioning his methods in dealing with her--especially claiming that she doesn't respect him or his job. He makes a good case for that, too. And he suffers again--last season, tortured by Angel, this season, carted to the hospital because of an evil watcher. Giles bears the brunt of bad decisions.

And that tragic flaw has cemented Faith's distrust of her, a large part of the reason Faith turns to the Mayor. Faith wanted to be accepted, wanted to be a Scooby--but it was made clear that she wasn't. The opening couple of scenes, she's like the sister Buffy never had (hehe--yet!), then it turns sour as Faith is excluded from the Scooby intervention--which comes after Buffy lies by omission about Angel.

When hard emotional choices must be made, too often, Buffy opts to follow the path of least resistance, and to not seek or disregard wisdom from others. She chooses isolation when community would help. As I watch more of these and as the plots turn darker, I think I'm going to see that as Buffy's tragic flaw....gotta watch more!