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

Cafe Society
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To the people who no longer like Buffy:

I think part of the problem is that she has, over the last couple seasons, become more real. She’s no longer a partly-ditzy teenage girl who quips all the time and has a generally great disposition. She’s lost her mother, her own life, Giles (for a little while), and is on the verge of facing a real army of evil. Those kinds of things tend to have an effect on a person, and generally not for the better. She’s become much more like the Buffy from “The Wish” in season 3, much more short, distant, and stressed out. I admit, I don’t like her as much now, but I think the writers should be praised for allowing the main character to develop as a real person would. It’s much too easy to say you don’t like her, and thus the show is worse, if you don’t consider why she acts like she does. She’s more complex than that.

To those who think there are too many characters:

You’re right. However, I don’t think MEy knew for sure they’d run out of time to tell everyone’s stories, I thought they had at least one more year to do that. And they may have a spinoff to deal with also. That being said, I agree that the Slayers in Training was wayyyyy took up way too much time this season and made the season drag. Even without the end being nigh, it was too much. I like the introduction of Wood, as Judith said, his motivations and depth of character were finally flushed out this episode, and I like that. However, I do think ME has too much on their plate right now to satisfy everyone in five episodes.

I really like this show, it’s one of the best on television. But I don’t want to watch revamps (pun intended) of the same kind of characters doing the same thing over and over. This season and last are different to be sure, but they’re more interesting and more in depth. Kinda like life. For better or worse, depending on your tastes, this season is much more real.

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I’m really trying to follow this thread but I am really lost.
Like I said I’m watching what I think is season five (?) everyday to the new ones on Tuesdays and I’m missing alot of pieces.
And it kind of sucks that a show that I am really getting into so late in the game is ending.
I first started watching the show because of a guy I know. I had never really had any interest in the show until my sister and her daughters kept telling me how much my friend looked like Spike.
My nieces won’t even go near the guy for like a half hour, and they peek around corners at him.

Pepper would you at least consider letting me peek at the picture of you and him together? :smiley:
And how does your hubby feel about all this? Mine won’t even sit in the same room as me when I am watching let alone if I told him I was spending money to go and see him.
Where can I get a list of appearances? Either him as Spike or with the band?
I looked all day yesterday with a google search and came up with next to nothing or outdated stuff.
You seem to be the person to ask.

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Rick, I don’t recall which ep specifically, I want to say it’s the pilot when Angel busts into the house of a vampire who’s trying to put the bite on Cordelia, but then part of my brain says that the dialogue took place in a sewer-type environment.

Kricket, you know you can ask for any missing pieces and undoubtedly seventeen different people will provide them practically before you finish typing.

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Damnit! I had a whole post and the board ate it. Grrr argh!
Anyway, Kricket, this thread on the Fan Forum Message Board is really long, but it does get updated regularly on his when he is appearing.
Here is a list of dates for his band. Most of them are in Europe, but there are a few in the States.

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OK, I tried to post this last night, and the hamsters ate it…

First, one more major difference between Spike and Angel- Angel, as far as I can tell, did not go insane when he got his soul back. All he got was some temporary amnesia, then guilt, guilt, guilt, brood, brood brood. Spike did go insane. It wasn’t the First that drove him bug-shagging crazy. Remember Spike’s like in NLM- “Things have been wonky since I got my soul back”. The first obviously took advantage of Spike’s insanity, and exacerbated it by presenting him with the apparitions, but he was already broken before he got back to Sunnydale. Those of you who think Spike hasn’t shown enough remorse for his evil can think about that for a while- the Peroxided One was driven insane by guilt and remorse upon being re-ensouled.

Also, why should he show remorse for killing a Slayer in a fair fight? Nikki Wood had as good a chance of killing Spike as he had of killing her. Just happens that Spike won. It wasn’t a murder, it was combat. Also, I think the line “I don’t give a piss about your mother” may have been delivered in anger- after all, Wood had just tried to kill Spike in cold blood. I hope Wood thinks about what Spike told him about his mother for a while.

Oh, and did anybody catch Anya’s lack of remorse over the people she slaughtered over the centuries? So much for a redemption arc for her. I think I just stopped liking her after that line, and I used to adore her.

Hamlet the reason I stopped liking Buffy last year was a combination of two things. One is easy to guess- her abuse of Spike. (FX reran “Dead Things” last night, so I got to watch the beating in the alley scene again. Oh, joy.) The other was that, after being dead and back, she was so hung up on what her friends thought of her that she couldn’t say, “Look, I was in Heaven, I was happy, you dragged me back to a world I thought I was finished in, so, yeah, I’m shagging the evil bloodsucking fiend, and if you have a problem with that, it’s your problem.” She seemed unable or unwilling to be her own person, and she took it out on Spike. I started liking her again at the beginning of “Him”, when she finally got Spike to come out of the basement. It’s nice to see her finally showing some rocks and standing up for what she feels is right even when her friends, and Giles, don’t agree with her.

I think Giles was just blowing smoke up Buffy’s ass with the whole “a general has to make difficult decisions” song and dance. If he really believed that, he wouldn’t have gone behind her back to have Spike killed. I have lost all respect for Giles after seeing this episode.

I don’t think Buffy realizes it yet, Giles, Wood and the Scoobies and SIT’s certainly don’t, but keeping Spike alive so he can work out his redemption is part of The Mission. In order to conuer the evil without, we first need to conuer the evil within, and by not allowing Spike to be dusted, she is enabling another creature to do just that. Of course, she still has a lot of self-examination to do, which she started with Holden in CWDP, but I think she’s on the verge of realizing this.

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There are some things I like about this whole season, and some things that just leave me - Huh!?

I liked Lessons, the first episode. Sure, there where proto-scoobies, which seemed terrible at the time, but considering what came (SIT’s, Kennedy ASF), it might not have been a bad idea to have a clearer connection to the High School. Giving Buffy a job as a councelor - sure. Not bad at all. Presumably, she’s been flipping burgers at Double Meat Palace, during the summer, which is not a very good setting for a continuing story arc.

Cell phones were good stuff too. I don’t know the ratio in the US, but over here 3 out of 4 people have a cell phone. It’s at the point where there are no pay phones anymore. Virtually everyone has a cell phone.
So why do we get episodes later in the season, where a character is running across (the albeit small) town, to tell another character something? Even on Ats, they had cell phones a couple of years ago, and Angel never liked them. Seeing how well it was used as a plot device on X-files, I think it could be put to good use in the Buffyverse too.

Anya’s viking backstory was quirky and fun. I admit to mild annoyance at hearing Pseudo-scandinavian, but it’s the same with everything coming from the US, apeing us Swedes. However, the distinct feeling comes over me, that since Emma Caulfield very clearly stated, before this season, that there was no way she would do another, I guess the writers did that episode to clear her out of the arc. Whatever sympathy I had for her, went out through the window with her setting up those frat boys to die. The feeling that the writers want to get rid of her got stronger last week, when she and Xander had a final shag, thereby closing the book on that character. This of course leaves Xander hanging, with nothing really interesting to do, but repair windows and comfort Dawn.

So we come to Conversations with dead people. In retrospect, it might be one of the best episodes this year. So many hints and clues about Buffy came up, when she was on shrink’s ‘couch’. Many interesting aspects, that could have been exploited. Her sense of being better than most (how could you not feel that way?), while craving a normal life. The dark aspects that able her to be this super-human. The tension between herself and her friends, due to this feeling of superiority. All left hanging.

Part of this season could also have been used to explore the dynamics between Willow and Buffy. The Buffster has always seen herself as the strongest in the group, and therefore also the leader by default. At times things have flared between Will and Buffy, where the red headed sex vixen (sorry, couldn’t help myself) has made it clear that she doesn’t want to be the geeky sidekick. Buffy’s not a general. She’s a mercenary in the front line. Willow could easily be the tactical leader of the group. Dawn and Joyce in CWDP is also left hanging. I’m not a big fan of Dawn (though I think Trachtenberg does a good job playing the part), but the whole key thing is also totally missing.

Gathering the SIT’s might be a good idea, to keep them safe from TFE. However, training them, seems like a big waste of time. The Initiative is clearly still working, as an organisation. Get them to a safe place, where the Bringers can’t get to them, and have those commando dudes watch over them.

Willows redemption is still strange to me. So she left England and came back. Giles should be with her and help her return and help her focus her enormous magic abilities, without going down the road to the Dark Side of the Force.

I like Spike. The character is fun. But ever since he first showed up in his De Soto, I’ve had the feeling that the writers are making things up, as they go along. They have no purpose for him, since he was just a plot device, to start with. This makes the whole sub arc, about his life and way to redemption, kinda boring. There is really no reason to go deeper into his background, than into Xander’s.

Becuase they decided to do this, and becuase they decided to drop Anya, they had to invent Andrew, as the comic relief guy. And then they start doing it again - hinting that he might be gay (why?), trying to make him more 3d, which in turn takes away focus from the Mission. Which should be telling the story of a vampire slayer, and how she got to be the strongest and best in a line stretching thousands of years back into pre-history - by relying on her friends.

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Hmmm… I think it was his sister (not a maid) who thought that he had come back to her as “an angel…”

I disagree, the writers have a very strict time limit and since we can infer that Spike was let in we don’t need to see it happen. Any dialog they used to explain it I think would be forced and stilted and a waste of time. I can’t see how “Ah, wasn’t it nice of Betsey, the maid who lives here with my mother to invite us in? I sure enjoyed eating her and hiding the remains…” would have improved the episode. But as you said, not a big deal.

Well, you probably know more about the Buffy fan base than I do, however it has been my experience that on the internet people who have complaints are twice as likely to speak up and three times as loud as those who don’t. For the record, I like Faith, and I think that the actress who plays her has a good screen presence. Dinsdale may have a point however that adding Faith could “gum up” the already complicated plot line by adding yet another character. I guess we will just have to wait and see

To get away from these issues for a bit has anyone else noticed that Drew Goddard seems to have been attached to the all the best episodes this season? Or maybe I am just imagining it….

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I think they could be having a lot more fun with Andrew’s homoerotic crush on Spike- hinted at in S6, then we see Andrew in a duster… Joss, that was funny.

Also, I was really hoping that it would be revealed this season that there was something fundamental in Spike’s psychic make-up that led him to eventually seek the return of his soul, something he was lacking that most vampires have, or that he had that most vampires don’t, maybe the demon didn’t quite fully develop in him, something. Something that would lead other vampires to say, “There’s something wrong with that boy.” I mean, yeah, being in love with Buffy would have been the final straw, but the camel’s back couldn’t have been in all that great of shape in the first place…

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I like the mystery surrounding Spike, namely why is he different from other vampires? That keeps it interesting. if ME tried to explain it, they’d probably just fuck it up anyway. I mean, who else was underwhelmed by the origins of the Slayer?

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Have none of you read Jane Austen? :slight_smile: In Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. Dashwood was booted from her home by her step-daughter-in-law because Fanny was the new mistress once the old guy kicked the bucket. Neither Mrs. Dashwood nor any of the Miss Dashwoods could inherit the estate because of the provisions of the will, which had an ironclad provision that the heir be male (presumably via a fee simple determinable conveyance).

Customarily estates were passed down via the eldest male so that they estate remained in that family and so that the estate was not broken up into pieces. If there were no sons, then a nephew could inherit. Some wills did provide a “life estate” provision where a widow or minor child could remain at the residence until his/her death but they did not hold title to the property in the traditional sense because they were not free to pass the title on to someone else upon their death. Rather the original decedent stipulated who would hold title to the property upon the death of the life tenant. Clear as mud?

Anywho, if we presume that Spike was the eldest son, Mom was probably either residing there as a life tenant (and the estate would revert to Spike upon her death, thus making him an owner) or a guest of Spike. Spike’s “death” is irrelevant because no one (including his own mother) knew he was dead.

To make a very convoluted and long post short, IMO Spike could enter the house because he was technically it was his house.

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My first thought on reading that was, “Wasn’t that when the Mayor tried to turn himself into a giant demon snake?” :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, this episode was pretty middle-of-the-road for me. I liked the Spike v. Wood stuff, I liked the Buffy v. Giles stuff, but over-all the episode was kinda flat. The scene where Spike says he going to kill Wood just before they cut to commercial was incredibly lame, though. Almost as bad as that episode in season five where Riley stake Spike with a poly-urethane stake. :rolleyes:

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Shows what they know. Some of us are 30-something gay guys who lust for him. :smiley:

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Well, Homebrew, I’m glad we’re on the same page, even if we’re reading the book from different perspectives. :smiley:

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Gaspode, here are some of my thoughts about your thoughts about some other people’s thoughts about thinking:

Anya - I’ve never been a big fan of her, but I loved her backstory. Sorry for the clearly unintended slag on Swedes, I thought the obvious language gaffs were meant to be funny. I had no idea Emma Caulfield was leaving (score one for going out of your way to not learn too much about spoilers), so I thought it was a good episode. Her return to vengence demon after being jilted was to be expected and I thought they handled it well. I woulda prefered her dying then, but hey, she’s been tolerable this season.

Buffy/Dawn relationship - You’re right, I would have liked a little more of this throughout the season. They’re supposed to be best friends, but we hardly ever see them conversing alone or dealing with their separate powers.

SIT’s - Fine for rounding them up, stupid waste of time training sessions and overwrought speeches.

Willow’s Redemption - I wasn’t nearly as put off as you were. Willow’s redemption was so much easier than everyone elses because she’s really a good person. Only pain and terrible loss led her to be evil, and those feelings couldn’t last. The dark side was there, but ran out of gas when she got done grieving for Tara. And for the first time she had other powerful witches in the coven helping her out. I would have been really upset if her redemption dragged on and on.

Spike - I’m in the minority with this guy because I loved him as a bad guy. I hated little puppy dog Spike, and can’t still get my head around the chip making him have good emotions again. I do like him getting his soul back and having to deal with that too, though.

Andrew - would have been a great addition if they had the time to develop him and his relationships with the scoobies. I missed his one episode, so I can’t say much other than they ran out of time for him.

Just my 2 cents.

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I liked the episode mostly because it was good to see Spike finally in charge of himself and no longer at the mercy of some chip/trigger/etc. (hopefully he’ll stay that way).

I definitely agree that I’d like to see the final episodes focus on the main characters and not on Faith and the SITs. However, it would seem illogical for Buffy et. al. not to bring in an extra slayer if they are in fact fighting the battle of their lives. So I guess it makes sense, although I don’t have to like it.

I am not happy with Giles. He’s usually my favorite character (hey, there’s gotta’ be someone for us older gals to get weak over), but I’ve really not liked him this season.

I must have missed something because I don’t know how Wood figured out which song was Spike’s trigger. The last I heard, they knew it was a song, but not which one. Between phones ringing and dogs barking, I’m sure I missed something.

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Spike told him it was Early One Morning-an old folk diddy his mum sang to him when he was a baby.

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Ya know, I think it’s really interesting that ME has managed to make a lot of us who used to like Anya and Giles not like them anymore this season, last year they managed to make a lot of us HATE Buffy (though I’m liking her again this season), mostly accidentally, but they’ve never been able to kill the love that the Spike fans have for him in spite of Marti Noxon’s worst efforts.

The fans Spike has lost over the course of the show were mostly Evil!Spike lovers who drifted away when he got chipped, but now I see evidence that quite a few of them have returned to the fold now that he’s got his rocks back.

I’m actually still holding onto my theory that ME is trying to make some of the popular characters (including Buffy) less popular because the actors have expressed that they are not interested in being part of any future seasons or spinoffs of Buffy. I think they’re trying to transfer fan loyalty to the characters who would most likely be part of a spinoff- right now that means Spike, Xander, maybe Dawn, and maybe (though it seems increasingly unlikely) Willow. Spike is still rapidly evolving as a character, Xander is finally showing some maturity, and I haven’t liked him from S1, but I’m starting to this season, Dawn is starting to be something more than Buffy’s whiney kid sister (though I wish they’d explore the Key angle) and Willow is becoming a force to be reckoned with.

OK, I’m going to stop milking this theory now.

[sub]not[/sub]

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Maybe I’m confusing 2 episodes, but I thought they did cover this. Gunn goes into the apartment, but Angel can’t go in, so he “leans” against the forcefield. A couple minutes later he stumbles into the room and one of them says “Guess he died.”

Also, maybe I’m reading more than necessary into a couple of lines, but it seemed that Nikki only went after Spike because he went after her son. She says that they can’t go home, and I don’t think she usually took Robin along on patrol. That means Robin shouldn’t be mad at her for dying - she was trying to protect him.

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Well, Pigs in Space, that’s an interesting angle. I hadn’t thought of that. I do tend to think that though that Robin was completely incidental. Spike probably would have killed him if he had the chance, but for him, it was all about the Slayer. So even if Nikki hadn’t gone after him, he was gunning for her.

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Just a thought- in “Fool for Love”, Spike was shown killing Nikki and stripping her of the duster while at the same time telling Buffy about the Slayer death wish. Interesting way of bringing the flashback into the present.

Could it be that Wood isn’t really so much angry with Spike for killing his mother, and at his mother for putting the Mission ahead of him as he is angry that his mother didn’t love him enough to want to stay alive to raise him?