I think that your thinking of the episode “Something Blue” from the fourth season. From here:
“Willow, in her attempt to get over Oz, casts a spell that ends up causing all sorts of chaos for the gang. Giles goes blind, Xander becomes a demon magnet, and Buffy and Spike fall in love and get engaged. As the two make out and plan their wedding, the demon D’Hoffryn notices Willow’s spell casting and its negative effects, and offers to make her a demon like Anya was. Meanwhile, Riley runs into a starry-eyed Buffy, who tells him that she is engaged to a much older man (although not as old as her last boyfriend). Willow sticks with humanity and reverses the spell, causing Buffy and Spike to find themselves kissing. The next day, Buffy must tell a baffled Riley that she made the whole thing up as a joke.”
Stupid PBS
My VCR is set to get the time directly from PBS. Very convenient when it comes to things like daylight saving time. This morning, I set the tape, and went to work. I know the time was set right because it’s the most visible clock in the house.
I came home tonight at 10ish to find the VCR two hours ahead (it read midnight) & a tape of an hour of Frasier reruns instead of Buffy.
So now, it’s hard set to the right time - but the horse already left the barn.
Had it not been for the humiliation of Dawn, this would be a 7 or 8/10 in the Buffyverse. But I find this things really painful, and actually look away. I understand why it’s done, as a plot tool to set up sympathy for the character. We are supposed to feel very sorry for her and better relate to her feelings. I just think it doesn’t have to be so much in yer face.
Also - I simply don’t by it. In Once more with Feeling we se dawn move, almost as a professional dancer. I got distinct Cyd Charise (sp?) and Audrey Hepburn feelings. The scene at the Bronze in this episode where she danced also showed that she really can move and controll her body. Dawn being clumsy. No way. Not ever.
And for the record. With all the hints dropped about her age, experince ASF, I’m certain that there was … poke-age…
Question:Where in the heck did Buffy get a rocket launcher from?
Observation:Xander saw Dawn from behind, didnt know it was her and said “daddy likes.” Of course when he did see it was her he said “daddy no likes.” Now you would have to assume that Xander knew the girl RJ was dancing with was most likely a teen, since RJ is a teen himself after all. So… from this we can conclude that Xander is a perv who likes young teenaged girls… j/k
Obvious Guy: The rocket launcher has shown up before, IIRC, they used it against The Judge.
Could anyone describe the beginning for me? I turned on in time to see Anya making an ice pack. I’d really appreciate it!
I liked the episode for the most part, very funny (especially the Spike/rocket launcher bit.) I hated the “acute embarrassment” parts, though. It makes me almost nauseous to watch things like that, I had to shut my eyes and cover my ears.
[me being childish]
Neener neener, I said Willow was gay, and nobody would agree with me.
Well, on the whole I liked this episode, but there were moments where the elements sit together rather uncomfortably.
I liked the early part with Dawn. This show works best when it’s doing it’s metaphor thing and Dawn’s overwhelming crush was a nice warped view of those powerful crushes we all got as teens. And yes, Dawn was whiney. Under the influence of the jacket, all the women weren’t exactly being themselves. I actually felt bad for Dawn.
The big contest was great humor. Buffy with the rocket launcher was funny. Anya robbing banks was funny. Willow trying to turn RJ into a girl was funny. Dawn trying to kill herself was … not.
I don’t mind the whiplash turns from humor to drama. It’s one of the things I like about this show. But it wasn’t that long ago when teen suicide was handled gracefully. It was even the cause of public service anouncements.
No it’s on par with all the funny bits. If they had just cut from the first three to Dawn, that would have been fine. The four way split screen felt very wrong.
Still, pretty good on the whole.
Best line: “Now I have to start over. Hecetae really hates that!”
To save time, I’ll just agree with most of whet y’all said.
However, the rocket launcher really did come out of nowhere, as it’s a one-use, disposable item – it couldn’t be the same one as season 2. Not that I mind, because it was funny as hell. It was like something out of Airplane!
Also, Xander being a pedophile? C’mon. He’s what, 22? Hardly too old to be checking out a 17-18 year-old. Kinda hard to tell how old people are from the back.
And I knew it was Dawn, by the way, but I do have to say she looked awfully tasty.
Overall pretty blah IMO. Didn’t find the funny parts you all mention all that funny.
Liked it, tho, for the fact that it signalled a change from last season’s depressorama.
My daughters found the embarrassing parts nigh unwatchable.
Was a bit of a shock when Dawn gave the guy the shove.
Wanted to see the rumpus room.
Bad Buff is better than just about anything else on TV, but this was nothing memorable.
The big problem with this episode that it almost screams for comparison to “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, a classic Season 2 episode. In fact, this comparison was invited by Xander’s flashback. So it’s not at all unfair to make the comparison, and find the sequel to be somewhat lacking.
I rate this pretty low, actually. It wasn’t as bad as some of last season’s output, but it’s still not going to enter the annals of the Buffy hall of fame.
The rocket launcher bit, though funny, did invite some questions. Like, if she still had the rocket launcher (and presumably had it since season 2), why didn’t she try that first on Mayor McSnake before taking the drastic step of blowing up the school? I mean, she was willing to use it to shoot at a much smaller target (the Judge) in a crowded mall, so why not at Graduation? Also, it seems like some problems involving Adam might have been much more easily resolved with a rocket launcher.
It just seems like they pulled the rocket launcher out for the sole purpose of a cheap sight gag, and will forget about it from here on out, even when it is the obvious solution to a problem.
Wow, what a relief. The first 1/3 of the show was so slow and clumsy I thought it was going to be a clunker. Thank goodness they picked up the pace a bit.
The last 1/3 of the episode was pure gold. The quad screen shot, the music, the Buffy/Spike rocket launcher scene, their great plan for getting the jacket. Nice. The first half needed a rewrite and some scene snippage. Anya was great again.
Re the rocket launcher: my impression is that it’s either re-usable or Xander picked up more than one when he and Cordelia went shopping at the local armory. Xander has previously mentioned using the rocket launcher. He really likes the rocket launcher.
LunaSea
Buffy and Dawn are sitting in the bleachers watching the football team practice and having a heart-to-heart about Buffy’s feelings for Spike and what-not. Buffy heads off and Dawn sees RJ. Romantic music swells. Commercial. Back from commercial we come upon Buffy fighting a demon in Anya’s apartment while Anya babbles about how the demon’s got the wrong girl. Buffy kills the demon and says something about how D’Hoffren must have decided to kill Anya after all. Anya agrees and I think that’s about where you came in. Which scene, by the way, I found really forced. There’s no reason why Buffy couldn’t have just stopped in to see Anya with the “I want my friends to be careful” rap without having a demon shoved artifically into the mix.
As far as Dawn’s being klutzy, I just chalk it up to not having learned how to move like a cheerleader. Just because she can slink a bit doesn’t mean she can pull off gymnastics moves.
I agree the scene felt contrived. And I’d think D’Hoffryn would have a more original, unique take on disposing of Anya than just sending a demon to kill her. Buffy also had a pretty swift transition from “I have to kill Anya” to “Something bad’s coming. I want my friends to be careful.”
I liked Xander a lot in this episode, particularly because he wasn’t getting beat on and in essence solved the Mystery of the Letterman Jacket. There were more glimmerings of his pseudo-father role to Dawn, though, that made me a little uncomfortable.
I really felt for Dawn in her humiliation scenes. Ouch. And she looked great at the Bronze, except for the poofy hair. But I agree with Trion, the suicide thing was a little much and felt kind of inappropriate when paired with the humor of the other attempts to woo RJ.
And although it’s already been mentioned, I loved the Spike/Buffy fight outside the window. To my eye, that did not look like the same rocket launcher that destroyed the Judge, though.
Bless FX for showing Something Blue and Hush before UPN Buffy. I had some great laughs(Giles: “I have more scotch” and Xander: “Can I be blind, too?”) as well as some scares courtesy of the Gentlemen (the sing-song rhyme in Buffy’s dream, the Gentlemen’s appearance at Giles’s window, and that great shot after Giles’s presentation when Buffy looks at the transparency and the sketch comes into focus). And there’s a bit of shirtless Giles in Hush, so yum.
I found this epsiode absolutely hilarious. The comedic timing and music was dead on. Sure they flip flopped the comedy/drama/painful embarrassing moments. I found the walking up to RJ with all his friends around almost as painful as the cheerleading scene. But the show never stayed in one gear for long allowing the painful parts to not get too painful.
The two metaphors I saw had little to do with “Bewitched, B, and B” where it was focusing on Xander’s perspective. This had more to do with the power of a high school crush and competing with an older sibling over something.
They are continuing to play up the Xander father role figure. I got the first glimpse when Xander was driving Buffy and Dawn to school earlier in the year. It screamed suburbia happy family syndrome. It’s becoming more and more apparent as the year goes on his role in the show is changing. No more butt monkey, hello stable provider and role model. Thankfully, not in a Buffy/Xander relationship because that would be too weird.
I think Dawn commiting suicide to show her love made absolutely, perfect sense. Because that is exactly what Buffy did as a result of how much she loves Dawn. Dawn really only has Buffy as a template for what love is.
Poor, poor girl.
Yeah, it was a rehash of BB&B (They’ve been doing re-hashes of S1-2 episodes all year.) But it had a point other than the letterman’s jacket. As a matter of fact, I think that was just kind of a throwaway-we-need-something-to-make-these-girls-wonky thing.
I think the lesson Buffy was supposed to learn from the whole thing was that people under spells may try to do horrible things like kill principals, but they shouldn’t be held accountable. I think she really, really needs to keep this in mind. ALso, she abused her power in school and with Dawn, and used sex as a weapon. (She could sleep with the kid, Dawn probably couldn’t/would’t.) The spell didn’t make her do either of those things, so we have to wonder what the hell is still wrong with Buffy? She didn’t learn her lesson from the sexcapades of last year? How long does she think she’s going to keep her job if she keeps pulling these stunts? (Threatening kids, pulling them out of class for sex…)
It also gives us more info on how Dawn works. Let’s see–wiling to kill or die for love, dances a lot like Faith (hmmmmmmmm.) Shoot, in that scene she was acting much more like Faith than Buffy.
We’ve learned that Willow doesn’t really have the magic controlled—she still doesn’t understand that she can’t use magic to solve her problems. What the fuck does it take to learn that lesson?
Hey! We also learned that Anya was willing to give her love money! She doesn’t strike me as someone who would rob banks an give people money.
Spike was the one who figured out the Letterman’s jacket mystery, so at least he’s out of the basement and figuring shit out.
As for Xander…I still think he’s being set up for a fall.
Since when does Buffy have flashbacks? They’re supposed to just make the reference and let the viewer catch it. If it’s important to the plot, you throw it in the previouslies.
Really, who didn’t know what Xander was talking about when he said he’d had trouble with love spells before?
Other than that, good episode, once they got past the stupid Dawn humilitation crap. Cliche is cliche, writers.
OK, I’m confused. First you say that Buffy needs to learn that people shouldn’t be held accountable for their action while under the influence of a spell. Than you go on to hold these characters accountable for their actions while under the influence of the spell. You say “The spell didn’t make her do either of those things”, but I have trouble believing that, under normal circumstances she would have pulled a student out of class for sex (just as a “for instance”). Or was there another abuse of power at school that you were thinking of.
The spell was (supposedly) to make her love him, not make her kill somebody, not pull him out of class to have sex. However, those things were a result of the love. So, she shouldn’t be held accountable because she wasn’t thinking clearly at all, she loved somebody supposedly against her will. Ok, so she loves him—how does she react? My killing (she is the Hand after all) and abusing her power. That’s the interesting part. Should we get on her case for doing those things? I think not. But should we question and wonder why she chose to do those specific things? Absolutely, I think they are very key. (heh).
She did the same thing in Something Blue. The Spell wasn’t to love Spike, the spell was to think she was marrying him. We all know that people get married all the time for reasons other than love, yet she immediately assumed she was in love with him.
j/k
Neener neener, I said Willow was gay, and nobody would agree with me.