Buffy 03/25/03 - Lies my parents told me (spoilers)

[Judith_Prietht]

The woman who played Spike’s mother gave an excellent performance. There was such a dramatic transition between her frailty while sick and human and her demonic manipulations as a vampire. For some reason that transformation really got to me, as it obviously did Spike. She was just so cruel, so twisted, and knew exactly how to hurt William most and completely mess with his mind. James Marsters played betrayal and sorrow there quite well, too.

The intercutting between that scene and the present day was also well done. Wood’s garage freaked me out, with all those crosses. It was like his own personal vampire Thunderdome.

[Glory]

Didn’t they start the scene with William and Dru with Dru examining her bloody, black lace glove? I took that to mean they’d just been snacking on someone…the servant that let them in, perhaps?

[Dinsdale]

Was glad to see William the Bloody beat the shit outta Wood. Didn’t understand why Woody was having such an easy go of it at first. And what was that piece of crap he strapped onto his arm?

The Dinsdale family was wondering how he was going to explain being a cyclops the next day at school. Our conclusion, he’d say he forgot to remove the spoon before drinking his cocoa.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

Did anyone catch William’s reference to “Dr. Gull”? Vaguely appropriate, that his family doctor would be Jack the Ripper!

Or is that old news?

[Finagle]

*Originally posted by Glory *
**Didn’t they start the scene with William and Dru with Dru examining her bloody, black lace glove? I took that to mean they’d just been snacking on someone…the servant that let them in, perhaps? **

I thought so. Wasn’t there a Drusilla line, “I like this house. It smells of flowers (?) and…viscera.” I might have misheard, but I thought that was it.

[Otto]

Bricker

All “Real Me” said was that neither Riley, Anya, or Xander could have invited Harmony in, because they didn’t live there. That dialog doesn’t exclude the possibility that ownership also conveys the “right to invite”. In other words, perhaps the rule is that ownership or residence allows a person to extend an invitation.

I guess I’m not seeing the distinction between “these people can’t invite because they don’t live there” and “the invitation has to be extended by someone who lives there.” I agree that ownership allows the owner to invite but that’s not really my point.

Moreover, it’s quite a jump to say that because we don’t see a dead or living servant, there was a continuity error. Persons of the class of William and his mother almost always had servants; it’s not a remote leap at all to assume that one invited William in at his request or demand. We didn’t see him enter the house at all – why do you assume that it’s a continuity error?

We are never shown Giles getting a work visa or a green card when he loses his library job, yet we accept without question that those administrative details were taken care of. We don’t whine about how unrealistic it is that he can enter and leave the country without a valid visa.

Ah, but we know Giles has a green card because the Council threatens him with revocation of it unless he and Buffy comply with its wishes regarding testing Buffy before releasing its information on Glory.

I assume this is a continuity error because there is never a servant seen in William’s house, either living or dead. Practically any error in continuity can be explained away by adding details or assuming facts not in evidence. The plain text as seen on screen does not allow for either William or Dru to enter the home.

Final thought: Angel is able to enter Kate’s apartment in AtS to save her without an invitation. It’s clearly NOT a continuity error; Kate comments on it. So we clearly have at least one more exception to the invite rule.

We have an exception to the invite rule which seems very clearly just that, an exception made by whatever it is that makes or enforces the rules. True, we don’t see TPTB make the decison to allow Angel to enter without an invitation and so I suppose we’re all guilty of adding extra-textual information in this case, albeit information that is strongly supported by the episode itself.

[pepperlandgirl]

Secondly, I agree with the idea that Spike should feel worse for the evil he did. I thought he was a pretty good guy as a human and now he has that soul back, he should start to regret what he did.

Right, Spike feels absolutely no remorse at all. That’s why he spent five episodes crying in the basement, and that’s why he immediately freaked the fuck out when he found he was killing again and led Buffy directly to the evidence, and begged her to kill him----twice. Spike feels no remorse, and that’s why as soon as he got the chip out, he started snacking on the potentials that live in his house. He feels no remourse, that’s why he insisted that Buffy kept him chained up in her basement, even though she thought it wasn’t necessary.
He’s pretty much the same old Spike. That’s why Buffy didn’t have to tell him that he was holding back. And that’s why he slept with Anya both times she offered, and that’s why he drops all sorts of hints and innuendos in Buffy’s direction, and that’s why he started hunting again the second he could after four years of pain and torture for doing what comes natural. He hasn’t changed at all, why before, Spike would have offered to leave if Buffy wanted.
Oh wait.
It didn’t take a century of brooding and weeping to become a better person. He’s a better man now. How much good would it do him to be whiny about his guilt, and would you want to watch that? Don’t you get enough of that on Angel?

[Otto]

*Originally posted by Glory *
**Didn’t they start the scene with William and Dru with Dru examining her bloody, black lace glove? I took that to mean they’d just been snacking on someone…the servant that let them in, perhaps? **

I didn’t see any blood on her glove. And even if there was, the LAPD (London Area Police Department) probably planted it.

Sorry.

Apropos of absolutely nothing in this ep but in anticipation of Faith’s return in the near future, do we have any indication of where Faith is originally from? For some reason I have the impression that she’s from the Boston area but I have absolutely no idea why I formed that impression.

[Charlie_Tan]

*Originally posted by Otto *
**Apropos of absolutely nothing in this ep but in anticipation of Faith’s return in the near future, do we have any indication of where Faith is originally from? For some reason I have the impression that she’s from the Boston area but I have absolutely no idea why I formed that impression. **

Dushku is Bostonian, which explains her accent, no? And IIRC, in season 2 it was established that Faith is from Boston, too.

[Judith_Prietht]

pepperlandgirl, far be it from me to tell anyone what to do, but your tone is growing increasingly combative in this thread for reasons that entirely escape me. I enjoy reading your posts (and I’m certainly jealous you’ll get to bask in the Marsters glow in mere days), and I guess I’d like to ask you politely to please tone it down a bit.

[pepperlandgirl]

sigh Judith, everybody else, I’m sorry. On the boards I typically talk about Buffy on, things are combative right now, due to tensions over spoilers…that on top of the fact that on certain boards if someone disparages Spike, they really mean that the fans are a bunch of stupid teeny boppers who only like him because he’s pretty…
Anywho, I’m just used to being forced to defend myself on boards where the tone is far, far from friendly. It’s not appropriate at all for this forum, and I’m sorry.

[Telemark]

I didn’t like the episode much, frankly. Spike has never been a favorite of mine, and the flashbacks didn’t help that. His lack of remose to Wood is really bothersome, making his character seem still non-worthy.

The ep just muddied the waters about what happens when someone becomes a vamp. At the end, Spike is convinced that it was the demon speaking to him, not his mom, so all her actions were driven by the demon. What about the recently turned William?! His thoughts were still of his mum, was not affected by becoming a vamp or was his demon just a slacker? Made no sense to me, how could vamp-William still have good and noble feelings but vamp-mom not?

The fake killing of Wood at the commercial break was lame, too. That was a cheap plot excuse. And the whole Buffy/Giles interaction fell flat for me, it’s gotten to the point where I could care less about Buffy and her inner turmoil. Buffy mentioning sacraficing Dawn while sticking by Spike felt really off as well.

The stuff I liked was young Robin and Nicky, the mission comes first, etc, and Spikes analysis of it at the end. The characters are trying to define themselves in their relationships, and are learning to first define themselves apart.

Not my favorite episode by far. Angel is proving to be a much better show right now.

[Bricker]

*Originally posted by Otto *
Bricker I guess I’m not seeing the distinction between “these people can’t invite because they don’t live there” and “the invitation has to be extended by someone who lives there.” I agree that ownership allows the owner to invite but that’s not really my point.

My point was that ownership or residence allows a person to extend a vampire-friendly invitation. I think “residence” is a more useful term than “lives there,” because while vampires don’t live anywhere, being dead, they may well have residence. We don’t know.

Ah, but we know Giles has a green card because the Council threatens him with revocation of it unless he and Buffy comply with its wishes regarding testing Buffy before releasing its information on Glory.

I assume this is a continuity error because there is never a servant seen in William’s house, either living or dead. Practically any error in continuity can be explained away by adding details or assuming facts not in evidence. The plain text as seen on screen does not allow for either William or Dru to enter the home.

Pish and tosh. If you don’t like the green card example, there are hundreds of other “fill-in-the-blank” inferences to be made over the seven years of the series. We never see Buffy get a driver’s license or learner’s permit, but from scenes where she drives, and asks to drive (Band Candy), we may infer that she has one or the other.

Why are we willing to make that inference, and yet balk at the inference that William cadged an invitation into a house in which he was well-known? It’s not that difficult; I suspect he could have appeared at ANY home at which he was known and ask the servant that answered the door if he could come in.

You seem poised to leap on any supernatural transaction and say that, unless we see all the elements explicitly, it’s a continuity violation. I say, on the other hand, that a continuity violation means a definite contradiction between two things we know with equal certainty.

To illustrate: suppose, in AtS, that Kate had not commented on the fact that she had never invited Angel in. You’d be screaming that the fact Angel was able to enter was a continuity error. But it wasn’t, was it? The fact is, in the Buffy-verse, there are a set of rules. One of them is, apparently, that there is a way for TPTB to remove the invite requirement under certain circumstances. It might be poor story-telling to fail to draw that connection for the viewers; it clearly would NOT be a continuity flaw.

Did you look at the screen at the end Buffy vs. Dracula and scream, “Wait - continuity problem! BUFFY HAS NO SISTER!” Or did you recognize that despite the seeming continuity problem, there was an explanation?

• Rick

[elf6c]

Not bad tonight. Not nearly as good as Angel, but then again Angel has the better writers, actors and Vampire with a Soul, so it’s to be expected.

I had lots of fear that tonight’s episode would just be 60 minutes of shameless pandering to a small vocal segment of the fan base, but with a minor very glaring exception it was almost an ok episode.

The exception-- Giles gets a one epsiode personality re-write ala Season 6 Xander. It was really pathetic. The whole cemetery scene was very forced. Giles did not act anything like his normal character-- but what the heck, what’s 7 seasons of backstory. . . :rolleyes:

The flashback scenes of Spike were really well done. JM always seems to do a better job as William or Early Spike then Season 6 or 7 Spike. It was a bit jarring to have the well acted flash-backs merged with the unbelievable cemetary scene and the flat and drama-less garage scene.

I think there needs to be a good slaughter at the Summers house-- way too many characters without enough to do (other then filler exposition or stereotypical behaviour). Poor Xander got how many lines? And yet, the worse character ever still gets lines? Who does she have photo’s of? I am praying she gets killed off, but know it won’t happen.

More of continuity in smoking ruins- in The Gift, Buffy was willing to let the world end rather kill Dawn. Now in same situation she tell Giles she would sacrifice Dawn to save the world. WTF?!?! And Spike is untouchable?

Also, way to “one dimension” Wood just in time for the fight. Can’t have good people dislike Spike. So Wood becomes shallow, Giles becomes a new character for an episode, and Anya is used to try and discredit the obvious “Spike is untouchable no matter what even to the breaking point of logic” issue.

And that is why UPN Buffy has been a major failure IMHO. A great series about Buffy and the Scoobies became “Spike and Pals”. To paraphrase a tired cliche, when Spike and Buffy became a “couple” and worse, he got his soul (Angel 2.0), Fonzi strapped on the waterskis.

Overall, here are my scores:

Flashback: 9/10
Use of the Scoobies: 1/10
Plot advancement: 3/10
Buffy: 3/10
Dawn gets hit in the head: 10/10
Kennedy still not Dead: 0/10
Character rewrites (Giles/Wood): 0/10

I would also like to join Judith Prietht in her request.

It is entirely possible for people to have widely discordant opinions on the show and characters, for and most issues there is no “right”. Just our opinions. The various web and spoiler boards are a small minority of the total fanbase. Each tend to be highly self-selective in the nature of who posts there.

[Bricker]

*Originally posted by Telemark *
The ep just muddied the waters about what happens when someone becomes a vamp. At the end, Spike is convinced that it was the demon speaking to him, not his mom, so all her actions were driven by the demon. What about the recently turned William?! His thoughts were still of his mum, was not affected by becoming a vamp or was his demon just a slacker? Made no sense to me, how could vamp-William still have good and noble feelings but vamp-mom not?

Perhaps because just as all people are not the same, all demons are not, either. The half-demon that becomes the vampire clearly has access to the person’s memories. He can recognize people from the person’s life, speak convincingly as the person… this suggests that some vampire-demons are strong and overwhelm the former human personality completely; others are perhaps weaker. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of one or two cases in history in which the demonic possession was so weak, and the former person’s so strong, that the vamp didn’t relish any kind of killing or evil at all. Obviously, it’s the rare exception, not the standard case, but who’s to say it’s not possible?

Look at Angelus. Even soulless Spike wasn’t interested in Angelus’ plans for ultimate evil; he readily allies with Buffy to save Dru and foil Angelus’s plan for armegeddon. Spike has no chip, no love for Buffy, and he’s acting out of self-interest, but yet in complete opposition to Angelus. Not all evil, soulless creatures act, or think, in lock-step with one another.

I say again: we just don’t know enough to make definitive statements about the process of becoming a vampire.

• Rick

[Judith_Prietht]

pepperlandgirl, no sweat. In the words of another boy who loved his mother, “we all go a little mad sometimes.”

Could someone tell me, with the kind assistance of spoiler boxes, who will be writing the remainder of the series episodes? I’m crossing my fingers for more Drew but not holding my breath.

I didn’t think Wood became one-dimensional at all. I felt there was an interesting dynamic built between Wood and Spike and the relationships with their mothers. While a simple vengeance storyline gets tired (Wood), I feel the showdown with Spike was absolutely essential to the development of Wood’s character in attributing a real cause to his resentment and hatred of Spike. Wood’s need for vengeance felt more like misdirected anger at his mother for leaving him (I thought back to how the young Robin just wanted to go home, and Nikki tells him “The mission comes first”), and walking into her own death.

[elf6c]

*Originally posted by pepperlandgirl *
**sigh Judith, everybody else, I’m sorry. On the boards I typically talk about Buffy on, things are combative right now, due to tensions over spoilers…that on top of the fact that on certain boards if someone disparages Spike, they really mean that the fans are a bunch of stupid teeny boppers who only like him because he’s pretty…
Anywho, I’m just used to being forced to defend myself on boards where the tone is far, far from friendly. It’s not appropriate at all for this forum, and I’m sorry. **

Saw this after my last post. I hope you know that none of us feel that way. Spike tends to get the best lines, and when properly written for (Seasons 4-5) he is one of the best characters. And I am sure each major character has his/her fans. Heck I even liked Riley! :eek: I know its shocking, but true. I liked the character. Please don’t tell anyone.

Just because some of us are quite sick of Spike now doesn’t mean we dislike those who are strong fans of his. I know some people can’t stand Angel or Xander, even though I do. Doesn’t make one of us right- just different.

I also wanted to thank all of you who have been so considerate with the spoiler tag use. Even though I carp at times about the decline of the show, I still am on the couch every Tues night, spoiler-free.

[Otto]

My point was that ownership or residence allows a person to extend a vampire-friendly invitation. I think “residence” is a more useful term than “lives there,” because while vampires don’t live anywhere, being dead, they may well have residence. We don’t know.

Actually we do know from AtS S1 that vampires can enter the lair of other vampires without an invitation.

Why are we willing to make that inference, and yet balk at the inference that William cadged an invitation into a house in which he was well-known? It’s not that difficult; I suspect he could have appeared at ANY home at which he was known and ask the servant that answered the door if he could come in.

There’s in my mind a qualitative difference between the examples you’re offering and this. Anyway, I never meant for this to become such a big deal. My point was that it’s sloppy writing, something easily corrected with a line of dialogue or a shot of a dead servant.

To illustrate: suppose, in AtS, that Kate had not commented on the fact that she had never invited Angel in. You’d be screaming that the fact Angel was able to enter was a continuity error. But it wasn’t, was it? The fact is, in the Buffy-verse, there are a set of rules. One of them is, apparently, that there is a way for TPTB to remove the invite requirement under certain circumstances. It might be poor story-telling to fail to draw that connection for the viewers; it clearly would NOT be a continuity flaw.

Well, actually, there is such a violation in AtS S1 “Five by Five.” Angel enters the apartment of the chicken hawk Faith beat up at the bus station. He’s still alive per the dialogue. He presumably didn’t invite Angel in and Faith (since she was “living” there despite having no legal right to do so, but who knows whether TPTB look at leases) didn’t invite him in. And yeah, I did grouse about it at the time and again when I watched the DVD. And if TPTB gave Angel a pass in that ep to save Wes from Faith or whatever I would expect it to be commented about. I would also expect a lengthy debate on the geekier fanboards about why TPTB would allow exceptions to save Kate and Wesley but not Kate’s father or, if able to grant passes at will, why not lift that restriction permanently from their Champion?

Did you look at the screen at the end Buffy vs. Dracula and scream, “Wait - continuity problem! BUFFY HAS NO SISTER!” Or did you recognize that despite the seeming continuity problem, there was an explanation?

Again, huge qualitative difference and it was obvious from the context of Dawn’s first appearance that Something Was Up. Now, had Dawn never appeared again then I’d be screaming “continuity error” with the best of them. Well, maybe not screaming it…

Again, I didn’t mean for this to become a big ol’ heated debate. Just a comment on what I perceive to be sloppy writing and how there always seems to be one moment like this in every ep lately (don’t even get me started on Xander’s Mystery Text Message From Across Time And Space).

[pepperlandgirl]

Writers and Titles for the Next Five Episodes.

18 Dirty Girls–New!Drew Goddard.
19 Empty Places–Greenburg
20 Touched–Rebecca Rand Krishner.
21 End of Days–Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson
22 Chosen–Joss Whedon
I do suspect from reading the scripts for Empty Places and End of Days that they have been heavily “Jossed”.

[Bricker]

*Originally posted by Otto *
Actually we do know from AtS S1 that vampires can enter the lair of other vampires without an invitation.

Oh, then bad example on my part. I have to admit what I know of AtS is through recaps, not viewing… would you mind reminding me exactly how and in which episode this revelation came up?

Thanks!

• Rick