"Intervention" (Buffy 5.18): Stuff Gets Weird

I have to say, though I never think of season 5 as being amongst my favorites, this rewatch reminds me of how skillfully the writers helming the follow-up episodes to "The Body" sensitively handle the psychological fall-out from Joyce's death. As seems completely normal, Buffy expresses some real reservations and concerns about what being the Slayer is doing to her emotionally. And she's not the only one who's having some interpersonal issues.

Not by a long shot.

So let's peruse the Buffy Guide to Self-Exploration.

DO it. Self-explore, that is. Giles, awesome as usual, takes Buffy's concerns seriously,

Seriously enough to do the hokey-pokey with a magic gourd. (The same magic gourd from "Primeval"?)

and thereby initiates a Slayer-quest that involves felines,

If it's anything like my cat, he's leading her straight to the food dish.

washed-out landscapes,

Did David O. Russell direct this?

and a cameo appearance from the first Slayer.

We all, again, try to ignore the racist depiction.

Slayer I tells Buffy that she doesn't have to worry about an inability to love, because she is love, and in fact "Love is her gift." That will be important later.

DON'T blame your self for your break-up with Captain Cardboard! Please! Stop it! Jenn takes down this persistent meme in Buffy's psychology so expertly, I'm handing this point off to her:

"There are two very good reasons as to why she could be available to Angel in a that she couldn't be for Riley. One: she had been hurt and hurt bad. Consequently, it is very natural for her to not be willing to risk such pain again. It's called emotional self-preservation. And more importantly, she wasn't there for Riley because he wasn't there for her. His inability to accept and truly respect her powers was a much more significant roadblock to their relationship. Deep down she must have sensed that she could never really trust him. I mean, how can you trust someone who doesn't have your back because he's too damn intimidated? It takes a strong man to be able to love a strong woman, and Riley wasn't ever strong in the ways that mattered. For Angel, on the other hand, it was never an issue. Not because he is a vampire and thus has his own strength, but because it wasn't ever a power play between them." Well said, my friend.

This stupid Riley picture is all me, though.

DON'T bury your pain in, well, a robot. Spike, showing his patented refusal to accept suffering, decides that if Buffy won't have him, he'll have a Buffy Bot.

The BB's "sexy" dialogue, as Jenn notes, is hilarious.

As are the different character infoscreens.

What is not as hilarious and a little strange? The rather graphic sex between Spike and the skin-job, including a visual joke that implies a blow job, gave me the wiggins, as the Buffy Bot has probably been programmed to say.

Unconventional sex will rear its, ahem, head in season 6, so again, this will be important later.

DO know where your loyalties lie. Spike, despite his robotophilia, also is the hero rather than the goat in this episode. After being kidnapped by Glory, he refuses to give up Dawn as the Key, despite a rather brutal beating

And an internal exam the likes of which no one deserves.

 But it earns him a kiss from a Real Live Girl!

This will be important, well, you get the picture.

DO know your role. This is mainly just an excuse to point out that Xander fighting the Minions is laughably pathetic. It's the lame battling the incompetent.

Reminiscent of his immortal slap-fight with Harmony.

The foreshadowing is flying thick and fast as we approach the conclusion of season 5!

"Forever" (Buffy 5.17): Mourning Becomes Angel

In Sunnydale, we're still dealing with the fallout from Joyce's death. Which of course makes sense--that sort of trauma isn't shrugged off after forty minutes, but I could see a lesser show not taking the time to as carefully and curiously explore how each character copes with loss. So we're back to the Do's and Don'ts of processing pain.

DON'T be an enormous ass. Buffy's dad apparently has yet to even call his bereaved daughters, or to provide them with reliable contact information, apparently.

Giles NOT talking to Buffy's dad. Also, written and directed by Noxon? Good sign.

That is one of the details about the show that continues to stick in my craw. Though Mr. Summers wasn't perhaps an ideal father in earlier seasons, he was a present one. It seems beyond the pale of even the deadbeatest of dads not to acknowledge this tragedy in anyway. I get that adding another character would probably be more trouble than it's worth, but still.

DON'T be a normal-sized ass, either. We all know Xander has issues expressing pain. It tends to manifest as anger, and that anger is not always directed at an appropriate target. As Jenn puts it, Xander misunderstands and then sounds off. His treatment of Spike, and his genuine attempt to honor Joyce, is unfair.

And he makes Willow make her worried face.

DO remember to celebrate life. Anya and Giles have different ways of indulging this impulse.

Way 1

Way 2 (with "Tales of Brave Ulysses" playing in background).

But it seems an important one that the show endorses. Anya embraces sexual expression, and Giles remembers the day and night he spent re-teenager-ed with Joyce in "Band Candy." Actually, maybe their strategies aren't that different after all.

DO feel the pain. This is a big one, and the episode's major concern. Dawn, brattiness finally justified, understandably seeks a magical solution to her very human hurt. She asks Willow and Tara if there are any spells that could bring her mother back. I think this is a smart moment in the show--for the most part, everyone takes it for granted that the Scoobies live in a world where the supernatural is commonplace. But this moment is an exploration of how that conceit would affect the emotional lives of the characters. Though Tara staunchly refuses, citing the Wiccan directive not to interfere with the natural order of things, Willow helps Dawn. Spike does too.

Not actually helping, part 1.

Not actually helping, part 2. Plus, I felt bad for the monster, who was only trying to protect her eggs.

Both of these characters have and will demonstrate issues with control and processing pain. As Jenn points out, for Willow in particular, the failure to ask "should we" in the name of "can we" is dangerous. The impulse to help Dawn (and Buffy) by bringing Joyce back comes from a good place, but it is a terrible idea. The episode argues for this both in content (What we presume is a zombified Joyce horrifyingly creeping closer to the house as the Summers sisters argue, and Buffy has a much needed emotional breakdown) and structure (the creature Spike consults about the spell, and therefore brings into Dawn's life? Not the last we'll see of him.

Not by a long shot.

DO be present. This is almost a corollary of the above point, but it has a literal embodiment in the episode.

Namely, this body.

Angel can't show up until nightfall, but when he does, he does the only thing that could help Buffy. Sit next to her all night. Everyone experiences and expresses grief differently, and there is often anxiety on the part of all involved (including those closest to the tragedy) to know what to say. Even Buffy doesn't quite know, and instead threw herself into funeral preparations and caretaking. But Angel's appearance, as well as the emotional breakthrough the sisters have, just in time to allow Joyce's body to return to rest, argue less for saying, and more for just being, in the face of terrible pain.

"The Body" (Buffy 5.16): Simply a Masterpiece

This episode is not one I would usually list amongst my "favorites" of the series, because it is decidedly not an example of the "hurts so good" catgory of "Amends" or "The Prom." "The Body" is upsetting and uncomfortable and unfair. It's also moving and revelatory and very, very real. Jenn and I agreed that the typical Do's and Don't's format wouldn't be appropriate to discuss what writer/director (and demigod) Joss Whedon achieved with this episode. I decided to recap "The Body" by looking at how Whedon used the tools of his chosen medium, television, to explore and represent grief and loss.

Time. The forty minutes of "The Body" is shorter than the time span covered by the story, but not by much. The show opens with the same scene that closed "I Was Made to Love You," emphasizing the crystallization of the moment Buffy discovers Joyce's body.

It's just as shocking every time.

The same mental process, by which ordinary objects attain disproportionate significance in the moments surrounding a trauma, is visually represented in the lead-up to Buffy telling Dawn the news.

Including an unmoving woman's body. The man's a genius.

Sound. One of the most apparent, and most discussed, directorial choices made by Whedon was the exclusion of anything but ambient sound during the episode There is no instrumental music--only distant sirens, chimes, and a whole lot of silence. After the frenzy of Buffy's attempts to revive Joyce, the arrival of the paramedics, and the pronouncement of Joyce's death, there isn't a whole lot to say.

Script. But there are things that have to be said, obviously. However, the episode isn't very interested in the specifics of relating the news. Buffy's ambiguous phone call to Giles--"She's at the house"--could just as easily refer to Glory, which is what Giles assumes. The audience is placed behind a classroom window when Buffy tells Dawn,

and the details of how Willow, Xander, Tara, and Anya find out are elided completely. Jenn also has a smart reading of the Christmas flashback, the first of the episode: "This episode really seems to center on the futility of wishful thinking, especially when it comes to something (like death) which is so thoroughly beyond our control. So, having Buffy's first flashback / fantasy going to Christmas and the conversation about whether Santa's a myth is an appropriate introduction. The idea of a real Santa would be great. It would be some positive magic in a world full of so much destruction (both the Sunnydale world and our own). Granted, Anya revealing that he would eviscerate children squashes that idea. But, that's the point. Even when we find out something's real, that doesn't necessarily mean it will meet our ideal expectations or be good."

Character. But what does get expressed verbally are a lot of unanswerable questions. From Willow's desperate uncertainty over what to wear in order to express emotional support for Buffy and grief for Joyce,

to Xander's attempt to blame Glory, then the doctors,

then the wall,

and Anya's poignant confusion over not just the how but the why of death

everyone is struggling to speak about the unspeakable.

Tara emerges as the emotional center of the group even more than usual in this episode. She comforts Xander by suggesting she understands how the pain in his hand corresponds to the pain in his heart, and her articulation of the psychic cataclysm occasioned by her own mother's death is the only comfort Buffy receives in the episode.

I'm tempted to quote her speech in full, but then you'd miss the brilliance of Amber Benson's delivery.

Genre. We are watching a show entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Whedon never lets the horror and fantasy elements of the show's modus operandi be trumped by the all-too-natural story of loss. For example, Anya's pleas for understanding, which at first read as her characteristic blunt insensitivity to the way people communicate due to only recently becoming mortal develops into a very human assault on the inescapable unknowability and brutal stupidity of death. This one I will quote in full. It's famous and it should be.

"I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, ... there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid. And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why."

The closing scene, where Dawn encounters a vampire after sneaking into the morgue to look at her mom, has occasioned some debate as to whether the intrusion of the supernatural interrupts the dramatic power of the episode. It seems to me that this is just another version of the argument that fantasy and horror, especially if televised, are somehow less serious or important than other methods of narration. Whedon demonstrates how fantasy and horror are intrinsically human responses to the body blow of loss. Buffy's fantasies that she arrived in time to save her mother are just as unlikely and impossible as the notion that vampires live and walk amongst us.

It's called magical thinking for a reason.

And Dawn's slow approach to her mother's dead body is the kind of horror story that the appearance of a vampire intensifies, not negates.

The closing battle graphically illustrates that, though in some ways death stops time, time refuses to stop because of death. Buffy is still the Slayer, and can't absent herself from the world because of her overwhelming grief. But the episode doesn't give us any closure, or any easy answers. The closing shot is of Dawn reaching out to touch her mother's face, and collapsing into blankness.

"I Was Made to Love You" (Buffy 5.15): How set up one of the greatest episodes in TV history

It makes sense that I would open the post that discusses the fifteenth episode of the fifth season with mention of the sixteenth. Up next is "The Body," one of the most critically acclaimed episodes not just in the Buffyverse, but in broadcast television history. Because "The Body" is such a monumental achievement, "I Was Made to Love You" often gets overlooked. But this Jane Espenson-penned show knows exactly where it's taking its characters--to the kind of grief and loss that cannot be slayed. My thinking about this episode was profoundly altered by an essay I read while researching some other topic years ago, and now I can't find it or recall the name. So if this rings any bells, thanks to the author and pass me the link! But in the meantime, please accept my apologies for this unintentionally stolen Buffy guide to setting us up for a gut punch.

DO change your tune about Buffy's love life. But it would be nice if you admitted as much, Xander. Both Jenn and I noted his rather abrupt turnaround. For example:

• Xander Quote from "IWMTLY": "The problem is not you."

VS.

• Xander Quote from "Into the Woods": "But you missed the point. You shut down, Buffy. And you've been treating Riley like the rebound guy."

 AND

[In response to Buffy's fear that she's too self-involved]

• Xander Quote from "IWMTLY": "I don't think you're like that." 

• Xander Quote from "Into the Woods": I think you took it for granted [Riley] was going to show up when you wanted him to, and take off when you didn't."

Maybe the puffy sumo suit blunts some of that self-righteousness.

Okay, now that's out of my system.

DON'T think love is something you can control. This episode concerns itself with a robot named April who has been created by some dude named Warren to be his perfect girlfriend, except, of course, when he meets the right girl, he abandons her. She comes to Sunnydale looking for him, and wreaks some havoc at some sort of luau-themed party at The Bronze.

Havoc-wreaking here takes the form of throwing Spike through a window.

Which begs the subsidiary question, why is everyone, including Ben, ostensibly a grown man with a job, hanging out at an all-ages club packed with highschoolers? [**Update**: Jenn has just informed me that this party doesn't take place at The Bronze, but rather at UC Sunnydale. Oops. Though it's still strange that Ben's there, yes? And the question below still stands.]

And why is Willow wearing a turtleneck to a luau?

But no mind. The primary question is, how can you protect yourself from losing love? Warren's interested, Spike's interested, and next week Buffy's going to learn the answer: You can't.

DON'T make my mistake. And assume this episode is in any way a throwaway. Not only does the poignancy of watching April's batteries die as Buffy sits with her guide us into a much more devastating and personal loss in "The Body,"

Makes sense she's on a swing set, since these are the last moments of her childhood.

but Warren and a robot that looks like a chick

As well as Spike's continued failure to heed the Do's and Don't's of this episode as well as "Crush."

 are both going to have serious and wide-ranging implications for the rest of this season and the next.

Next week: The pain is brought.

Jenn calls attention to April's last words, which also will be resonating for quite some time. Here's her take. April: "It's getting dark. It's so early to be getting dark." --> I could not help but read this line in terms of how the episode ends. Somehow I don't think we're meant to. She is so prophetic even if she's a robot because of Joyce, Glory, and "The Gift." It would definitely explain why she dies before she can finish the cliche about it getting darkest before it gets better because it won't. From here until Season 7 it is just one long 30 episode descent into darkness.

And of course, the word that April doesn't say to finish that cliche is "Dawn." This re-watch is really reminding me of how crucial Little Bit's appearance is in the show as a whole.

"Crush" (Buffy 5.14): Spike's Got 99 Problems

And the bitches are like, #1-3. This is the episode where we get the big reveal re: Spike's feelings re: Buffy. And, as Jenn points out, the results are a bit underwhelming. So here's the meh Buffy guide to dealing with a love that ain't requited. Spoiler alert: Spike doesn't follow any of these rules.

DO try not to be too fucked up. And here's where Spike earns his first major fail. First of all, he dresses like a prepster doofus.

Are those khakis? I blame Riley.

Second of all, he engages in some utterly perverse role playing with Harmony.

Where has she been lately, anyway?

DON'T disregard the foreshadowing. Tara fulfills her usual role this season of being incredibly insightful, even when she doesn't know she's being insightful. (So is that just "sightful"? Whatever.) She might think she's discussing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame when she says that the love story would never work out because the hero acts out of selfishness and "you can tell it's not going to have a happy ending when the main guy's all bumpy,"  but methinks there is a second meaning there.

Oops.

DO avoid falling into bad patterns with old lovers. Dru takes a break from growing back her skin from the Angel flambe and makes a little trip to Sunny D. She wants to snag Spike for the Her and Darla Army (since Angel slaughtered the last group of recruits), and goads him into eating the recently dead female half of the, as Jenn points out, least sexy maker-outers ever seen in The Bronze.

It's like they're slow dancing in junior high.

And, if you are going to be fucked up, DON'T let the crazy show.

Pictured: Crazy showing.

DO take a hint. And this goes for Harm, too. Both Spike and Harmony love in a way that completely disregards not only the actions, but the actual articulated rejections of their crushes. Buffy basically dry heaves whenever Spike professes his love for her,

The expression everyone dreams of seeing when dropping the L-word.

and Spike, in turn, freaking tried to stake Harmony not that long ago.

Um, awww?

DON'T forget about the key. It's actually Dawn's crush, on Spike, that for me is what makes this episode relevant for the season and series. Buffy is revolted at her sister's fixation because Spike is a vampire without a soul.

Unlike this guy.

But Dawn's glib "same dif" when comparing Angel's soul to Spike's chip is pretty provocative. Does the prohibition against Spike's bloodlust give him the space to choose an ethical and human life? As Drusilla tells us, vampires can love, "quite well . . . if not wisely."

It's the line of the episode.

Let's keep an eye on this question, shall we? Is a soul materialistically ontological (you have one or you don't)? Or is it existential (about the choices a vampire makes)?

"Blood Ties" (Buffy 5.13): It's Buffy's birthday, so you know shit's going down

Buffy doesn't have the best record when it comes to celebrating the anniversary of her birth. And though this is no "Surprise," there is some Summers family drama. So here's a little guide to how to let your little sister know she's actually a blob of energy that might be evil.

DO actually tell your little sister she's actually a blob of energy that might be evil. Dawn has known something was up since she overheard Giles and Buffy talking about it a few episodes ago. She decides in the first few minutes of this episode to tell the other Scoobies, and has a rare moment of admitting she was wrong to wait. But she continues to wait to tell Dawn, just amping up the weird factor at her party that night because everyone is looking at Dawn like she's actually a blob of energy that might be evil.

Don't know why she didn't assume everyone was talking about the remarkably horrible shirt Xander was wearing earlier.

DON'T let the emotionally stunted vampire be the one to support her through the shock. And a subsidiary DON'T: DON'T write down absolutely everything in your journal, Giles. When Dawn gets tired of everyone being so utterly bad at pretending everything is normal, she sneaks out, runs into Spike, and goes to The Magic Box in order to find the journal, which isn't even written in code or anything. Spike is actually quite sweet about protecting her, and they get along really well, which is one of the cool things about this season and next, even if it does indicate that Spike is just like a teenage boy so he and Dawn have a lot in common.

What isn't so sweet is his "guess that's you" when she finds the passage about the Key.

DO let Dawn have her diva moment. Little sis loses it but good when she finds out she's not, technically, human, and only about six months old. Jenn and I both noted what a good job Michelle Trachtenberg does in these scenes.

Maybe it's just the ginormous knife, but this moment in particular gave me chills.

Buffy does her part to keep the focus where it belongs, on Dawn, by wearing a truly hideous and unflattering coat whilst searching for her.

It's like what the Slayer on Planet of the Apes would look like.

Jenn managed to ignore the coat long enough to recognize that Buffy's uncertainty about what to do even after they find Dawn is a key moment in the season. I shall quote her in full: "What is making this season so interesting is that Buffy, for the first time really, doesn't have a plan or even know what to do. She's fighting so many Big Bads (i.e., her mother's illness, Glory) that she can't even know where to begin fighting. Moreover, all of her strength is useless. She doesn't have a Plan B because she doesn't even have a Plan A. For the first time, it's life that's getting her down in a way that she can't act on; she can only react and deal with where the pieces fall." 

DON'T get too distracted by this storyline's attendant bullshit. Here are a list of things about this season that I a) think are stupid and boring and therefore b) can't stand to see on screen:

1. Glory's minions
2. The Knights of Whatever the Fuck
3. The Ben/Glory body-sharing crap. 

All

goddam

three of them are in this episode. 

And it won't be the last time, either.