He didn’t drive the car, remember - two of the slayerettes were fighting over who would drive. And we haven’t seen him touch anything.
(But in order to do the hokey pokey dance, he would need to touch the gourd - but I’m guessing the writers forgot that too, when they forgot about the concrete.)
Of course Giles touched the gourd. It doesn’t matter if the Slayerettes see him touch something, they don’t think he’s the First. The point isn’t that Giles hadn’t touched anything, the point was that none of those four characters could remember him touching anything. Which isn’t that unlikely. They probably saw him touch lots of things, but couldn’t recall any specific memories. Like, “Did he open the door when he came in yesterday, or was it already open? I think he opened it…”
And, sure the shadowy government guy ordered the Iniative filled with concrete. Then the contractors tell him it’ll be $750,000 for the concrete alone, never mind the labor. And appropriations decides that instead of literally pouring another three quarters of a million into this bottomless budget hole, they’re going to buy fuzzy dice for the rearview mirrors on all the stealth bombers. So he says, “Hell with that, just weld the doors shut. And for the love of God, leave the bodies there. They were doing some sort of bizarre biologic experiments down there, who knows what sort of hideous demon-germs you’ll let out? You want us all to end up like Planet of the Apes?”
Anyway, I really dug the episode. 9/10. Bonus points for use of the term “lesbodar”.
I can’t believe some people are saying they should have cut the sub-plots. I mean, isn’t that what’s made the last few episodes so blah–the fact that there were no subplots? I was thrilled to have actual action taking place, with multiple storylines, and–best of all–not a single inspirational buffyspeech to be found. And I don’t think the Spike’s chip storyline is over yet, didn’t they leave it hanging whether or not Buffy would choose to have it repaired or removed? (Remove the damn thing already! Let the man stand or fall on his own.)
Only thing that really bugged me was Spike’s “I’m on this leash” talk. I guess it makes sense, but it just seemed so pathetic, you know? And a little too reminiscent of icky ol’ Angel chained in the basement way back when.
Also, what was up with the full-on open-mouthed Warren/Kennedy smooching cutting into the discreet little back-of-the-head shot of Willow/K? That just seemed off–it made me wonder if ME was wary of the girl on girl passion shot, or if the actresses were just uncomfortable doing it. Either way, it kind of took me out of the moment.
Overall though, I liked it and thought it was a big improvment over the last couple eps. The lack of SITs played a big part in that–it was great to see the real cast get some screen time.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t saying this episode jumped the shark. I was referring to the next episode with its ‘very special guest star’ Ashanti.
Gah! She made ita all better with a kiss!
Horrible! Bad bad bad! Most cliched ending possible (well, except for teh fact they were lesbians, but that’s not enough)!
Except for the involvement of another witch (whom, I agree, had no motivation to be that nasty, and how did she know Kennedy was a potential?), I called every step of the plot.
I liked the Initiative and Giles plots however, so it wasn’t a total loss.
And I agree that there’s very little between Kennedy (she’s the Sapphic Riley) and Willow.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Otto *
**And I was thoroughly disappointed that The Initiative isn’t a concrete-filled hole. I don’t believe for a second that the U.S. Army would leave the bodies of any of their soldiers lying exposed in a pit.
QUOTE] **Those weren’t the bodies of initiative soliders, they were the bodies of most of the demons they had locked up.
Many of the demons broke loose during that free-for-all in Initiative’s headquarters. That contributed to the creepiness – the possibility that some demons may have survived, but were walled up and “buried alive” to starve or kill each other. That’s why Buffy sounded a bit disgusted with her “they just left them here?” line. It was a little unnecessarily cruel and macabre.
Granted, had they filled it with concrete like they said they would, it would have been a non-issue. Baddies that survived would have beenr ecaptured or killed and the dead would have received their “burial”.
MrMyth
WARNING - SPOILER ON LINKED PAGE
This brief article shows some picture assuring this constant viewer there will be eye candy.
That was so they could easly edit from Willow to Warren without interrupting the flow of the camera pan. See Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rope where they have to do that a lot to make it look like one, continuous take.
On my tape you see plenty of girl/girl – though the back-of-head edit was a touch awkward because the camera pan seemed to pause for a second longer than it should have durng the presto-chango Warren turns back to Willow.
Giles’s question as to why the Scoobies thought he was evil was a hoot. Other than that, the only good thing about this episode was that it settles the endless debate over whether Beer Bad, Wrecked, DMP or WTWTA is the worst ep ever - by making the answer “None of them, it was TKiM”.
Especial highlights of awfulness (some of which have been covered before):
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They only just let Andrew out of the chair, and Xander - who has always trusted him least - is willing to leave him alone in the house? Yeah, right.
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Five minutes of Kennedy and Willow flirting. This was a complete waste of time in an ep that was already trying to fit in too much and failing. And that’s before I mention the total lack of chemistry between the two, or the general limpness of the writing.
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Spike and Buffy investigating the old Initiative complex that was FILLED WITH CONCRETE AT THE END OF S4. Even if you want to plead that they never got round to it, they sure as hell wouldn’t have left all the bodies down there.
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Amy’s bitching about how Willow has all this power, when she’s just demonstrated that she can block Willow’s power without too much trouble. If she can do that, why does she have any need to bitch? She also knows for a fact that Willow did have to work to get her power, having spent two years in a rat cage watching Willow bitch about not being good enough at magic to transform her.
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Amy can teleport people despite being less powerful than Willow, who couldn’t do it at the absolute peak of her power. Amy can also teleport people through time - that, or Greenberg doesn’t know the difference between day and night. (The jury is out on that one.)
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Amy’s hexing Willow is utterly inconsistent. For starters, it’s already been well established that Amy doesn’t like hexing other people. For seconds, is she really stupid enough to hex someone that powerful?
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The Giles <> First setup in the teaser. What had been a subtle and clever play was suddenly ruined by a hack who I sincerely hope never works again.
wow, the curse of living in sweden… I don’t know which episode we’re in, but I’d guess it’s #3… Soo, I have absolutely NO idea what you’re talking about.
No offence, Lezaza, but you probably shouldn’t be reading this thread if you don’t know what’s happened in the last ten eps.
Swedish TV lags behind. I think it’s season 3 which is on the air right now. Maybuy that’s what Lezaza was refering to.
For all those moaning about how Amy had no motive to do what she did… stuff it. We have no idea how living three years as a rat affected her. The psychological studies of human-rat transformation victims remains, sadly, in its infancy. And frankly, Amy was not exactly the world’s model for mental stability to begin with.
Nor did I find the Giles-TFE scare “moronic”. As has been ably pointed out by others, there was no real hole in the proposition. He didn’t drive. TFE would be good at seamlessly moving around people without touching things; the fact that no one remembered whether he had done “solid” was very realistic.
Now, I have to admit, were I in a group that was fighting such an enemy, I might institute a “high-five” tradition whenever we met up. Just to be safe.
- Rick
Evil Death:
Sorry, but you place way to much faith in the competence of government and contractor operations.
The mere fact that someone orders a place filled with concrete doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen. And who will do the work? For all we know, the contract award to Contractor A was protested by Contractor B, and, having failed to resolve their differences at the GSBCA, they are now awaiting a courtroom determination, for which the backlog can be as much as four years from the time the board rules.
You might think that there would be a push to solve the problem quickly – but that can actually make it worse. The fact that the government can’t go public with the award or the dispute limits its negotiating power. And since it’s a failed secret project, not too many folks are willing to tie their careers to fixing the ruined remains thereof.
In short, it’s entirely plausible that the Initiative was never actually filled with concrete.
- Rick
Reckon I’m just not as picky as some. I liked it.
They had the right idea with this episode, there was just a few big problems which screwed it up.
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there’s very little anything between Kennedy and Willow. It is painful to watch. Riley was a thousand times better. Kennedy’s role and actress have to be the worst in a long time. Is she Joss’ niece or something?
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Spike’s purpose is what now? Vampire in peril? Again? He’s the pointy toothed Dawn now. It is like a Lifetime very special movie with him. What happened to the big bad Spike? He truly has become a big Nancy boy now. The shippers can’t be too pleased. If you have something for him to do, then fine use him. But his plot lines have been so horrible that he would have better off staked. Sad to say, he is not even interesting. And that is sad.
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Too many characters- there needs to be a good slaughter in town.
Overall 6 out of 10. Please Joss, no more Kennedy- I am begging.
Well, I liked it a lot.
Guess that illustrates a big difference between me and a bunch of you fans. Tho I have been watching the show pretty regularly since S2, and am now enjoying reruns of earlier seasons with my family, I guess I am not as concerned with continuity as many of you. And I guess I missed a couple of eps at the end of the season w/ Adam. (Those are in reruns right now, and Saturday’s was pre-empted by Columbia coverage.)
I still don’t see what your big gripe is. The gov’t said they would fill it up. But you never saw such actions even begun. Why do you feel it necessarily was done?
It seems as tho many of you focus on the need for plot and character development, which I often feel comes at the expense of the enjoyability of the particular ep. And yesterday’s ep was - IMO - VERY enjoyable. Glad they are able to mix it up, so that some eps please your tastes, and others mine.
(And the lack of Whiny!Dawn was a major boon!)
We had better see Amy get killed by one of the team soon.
Re: the ep. Weak. Partly because I’ve seen too much of Willow being evil, partly because things were resolved just a little too neatly at the end, and partly because I know with sad clarity that the Scoobies are not going to whack Amy. Although it would be really cool to see Xander remember his military training and shoot her from a rooftop, Willow give her an object lesson in power, Dawn to set her on fire, Spike to celebrate his chip-free existence by eating her, or, for kicks and giggles, have Warren summon a demon to kill her.
Also, I predict that next ep will start with Buffy telling Spike that the chip won’t be misfiring anymore, and we will be led to believe that she had it repaired. Obviously, she had it removed, and we will see something dramatic where Spike hurts someone.
And it’s equally plausible that the US government don’t do even the most elementary cover-up of their secret projects?
Crayons
Well, I didn’t tape the ep but it sure looked like some of those bodies were wearing uniforms. yes, the demon they fought was also wearing some camos but I still think we were meant to think these were human soldiers left to rot.
Evil Death
- When Willow was trying to undo the malediction she was working under the faulty assumption that she was the cause and that it was a glamour. This satisfies me on the point that WIllow was blocked from breaking a spell that she didn’t know about and the “blocking” reference was another of Willow’s assumptions. Sure she’s “blocked” but not by someone, by something, that something being her own faulty assumptions. 2) Willow could certainly teleport people. Gods too. She and Tara working together teleported Glory. Veiny Willow teleported Dawn, Buffy and herself from Wrack’s place to the Magic Box. What annoyed me about the teleportation (besides the time differential) was that Kennedy suffered no ill effects from it while Buffy and Dawn both passed out. 3) While it may have been established at one point that Amy doesn’t like hexing people, that would have been quite some time ago (so long ago that I don’t remember it’s being established). She certainly didn’t have any problem charging Willow up against her will and there doesn’t strike me as being that big a jump from the one to the other. But I still think her rationale was weak.