"Where the Wild Things Are" (Buffy 4.18): Not as Nauseating as I Remembered

When I tell myself I don't like season 4 of Buffy, what I'm thinking of is the alpha and omega of crap that is "Beer Bad" and this week's selection. And they both happen to have been written by Tracey Forbes. Which might be enough to wish her obliterated from the Buffyverse, but Forbes also wrote "Something Blue," one of the highlights of the season. Why are you such a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, Tracey Forbes? Who are you? What do you want from us? These are questions that must remain unanswered as we all grit our teeth, swallow our bile, and endure the Buffy guide to surviving the Buffy/Riley bone-a-thon.

DO skip through any scenes that look like this:

And there are a lot of them.

DO focus on the positive.

Xand is the creepy ice-cream man.

Tara is being Scoobified.

Graham!! Made only sexier in comparison with Forrest the asshole.

DO appreciate the guest stars. The reason that Buffy and Riley (I don't even want to give them a fun nickname like Briley) are acting like they just took monster hits of X is that the dorm is possessed by the repressed spirits of a group of orphans who were horribly punished for puberty. The Punisher? None other than Mrs. Landingham!

The West Wing was such a good show.

DON'T forget what sexy really looks like. 

Hint: It's this.

The only reason I don't pretend this episode doesn't exist is that I never want to lose the awesomeness of Giles crooning "Behind Blue Eyes" at the Espresso Pump.

He's wearing an earring! Team Ripper!

So we've made it through, fellow Whedonites. Let's be kind to each other and not talk about how this episode figures sex as a force that possesses people and makes them at best callously selfish and at worst homicidally insane.

And features far too many ridiculous O-faces.

As my intrepid co-watcher Jenn phrases it, this whole show is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But rather than pontificate on the ways that the argument of "Where the Wild Things Are" actually reinforces Mrs. Landingham's take on the evils of sex, let's instead focus on Giles and The Who.

Holy hell, that's hot.