FYI, the romantic music was “Theme From A Summer Place”
Did Spike do something with the angels? I missed that.
I don’t think it was for the viewers in the audience. In fact it had nothing to do with the viewers. It was simply a set up to have it cut to flash backs and cut back to smililing, reminiscing (sp?) Xander. It’s all about the funny. Xander talking about how much trouble it was and then he’s smiling. They were simply trying a different method to tell a joke they hadn’t used before.
Thanks Otto!
Eh. I don’t mind wondering why she chose those things to do, but I don’t think it’s an indication that something is “still wrong” with Buffy. Everybody has weird impulses, it’s when you can’t control them that there’s a problem (here I’m mostly thinking about the sex thing again). When Buffy isn’t under the influence of a spell, she does OK.
Also - some of it was just for the funny. Must respect the power of the funny.
Well, now I think you’re being too literal. The spell was also supposed to make Xander a “demon magnet” but the demons weren’t being dragged along behind him like iron filings. A little artistic license please.
I think all evidence points to the spell not just making girls fall in love with the coat’s wearer, but to making girls become utterly, totally obesessed with him. It wasn’t mere love here. It was love taken to its worst extreme, where the girls lost sight of everything that didn’t further their ends of “getting” RJ. Ethics, compassion, trust, foresight-- all those were completely swept away by the spell. So Buffy is willing to kill a human (a Very Bad Thing), Dawn is willing to die (a Very Bad Thing), Willow is willing to use dark magic (a Very Bad Thing), Anya is willing to steal huge sums of cash (not so much of a Bad Thing, but definitely illegal).
Except for Anya (and I blame this on character development more than anything else), each girl “decided” to do something that would utterly repell them ordinarily. And if that’s the extreme end, the stuff like making out with a student or pushing someone down the stairs is practically incidental. If they’re that irrational, it’s hardly fair to expect them to remember lessons they’ve learned in the past.
I thought it was a fun episode. Not great, what with the plot in a holding pattern, but for once the show ended on a positive note, no innocents were killed, Spike was mostly just Spike, and Xander was treated with respect. I dug it.
Let’s not forget that Dawn shoved a guy she barely knew down some concrete stairs… definitely un-Dawnlike and Very Bad.
Yup the flasback was for Xander and to provide the cut to the dopey grin.
I don’t think Willow would have used magic to solve the problem if she hadn’t been influenced by the letterman’s love spell. It seems to go a long way to errode self-control. Also magic is for solving problems, problems that can’t be solved by normal means. So if the problem was a legitimate one it would have been OK for her to do the hecetae gender flip-flop but of course there was no real problem.
Tim - tiny point. I assumed the spelling was Hecate, from Greek mythology.
A quick google suggests that Hecate is considered important to certain - um - witchy types.
In the ex-jock’s living room, Spike wandered away from the conversation and started examining some figurines on a curio shelf. He very carefully turned the angel statuettes so that their backs were to him. It was the way he did it–a kind of detatched, open, calm–that was spooky.
Well, actually we know where the rocket launcher came from. That wasn’t really the problem, at least from my end. It was that the rocket launcher, which has been missing since Season 2, was brought back solely for the purpose of a cheap sight gag, after which it will probably be forgotten again.
If they’re going to make it part of the story that she still has this thing, they should remember that when writing other scripts in which the rocket launcher would be the obvious solution. This isn’t the same as remembering that you can push the Enterprise to Warp 911 by adding ultralithium to the antimatter dot matrix, suspending it in a magnetic envelope and blowing it out the Enterprise’s ass. That’s pseudoscience gobbledygook, and who the hell knows if it makes sense, so who cares if they forget about it the next time. (Anyway, knowing Trek, there’s probably some pseudoscience exception that prevents the solution from working the same way, such as it only works on Tuesdays or when positrons dance on the head of a pin stuck in the collar of Schroedinger’s cat. ) A rocket launcher is much more basic.
The difference between this and, say, “Innocence” is that “Innocence” was an episode in which Joss and the writers constructed a problem that required the rocket launcher as a solution. (Joss’ audio commentary to Innocence makes the importance of having the rocket launcher in it clear). The rocket launcher was still funny in “Innocence” (“What’s that do?”), but it was not just a sight gag, it was the clear solution to the problem posed. The rocket launcher then gets mothballed for five years, after which it is brought out again, not as the solution to a problem, but simply because the writers wanted to get a chuckle. That’s sloppy writing.
Except that Anya was demon then. She just-a-human now, I think.
I thought the episode was a great relief to the constant downers of the season so far, while still having some poignant dramatic moments. I was with Xander (and Willow, apparently) for a moment at the Bronze.
“Nice bu…whoa. Is that…oh, my.”
–
Justin
But ya gotta admit, the scene was funny. I think shooting the scuffle over the rocket launcher over Principal Wood’s shoulder and through the venetian blinds was just brilliant. I don’t think it would have worked as an outdoor shot. Then Wood glancing out the window just a bare second after Spike had run away with the rocket launcher and Buffy had chased him capped it perfectly.
Ditto for The Plan- Xander tackling RJ and holding him while Spike (quickly, that was so beautifully executed, I wonder how many takes that scene took), peeled the jacket off him and the two of them running out of the frame. Having the Taking Of The Jacket in the background, rather than the foreground just made the scene. Didn’t catch the closing credits, but whoever directed the episode deserves a large pay raise.
I would have liked to have heard more lines from Spike, but I think his quietness was highly appropriate for the situation. He seemed, I don’t know, pensive I guess would be the closest word, but there seemed to be more to it than that. I had actually expected some snark from him, but I’m kind of glad he wasn’t snarky. There was something eerie about the normally garrulous Spike being so quiet. And I expect the shot of him turning the angel figurines around to turn up in the “Previously on Buffy the Vampier Slayer” segment of at least one future episode. That shot was so brief and almost casually handled, I thnk a lot of people might have missed the significance of it.
I agree that having Dawn in the quarter screen lying on the railroad tracks amid the other women’s humorous methods of proving their “love” for RJ was inappropriate. The humiliation scenes were incredibly painful to watch, and that shot as the topper- sorry, not funny, didn’t mesh well with the other three.
I’ll give the episode an 8 out of 10.
The rocket launcher isn’t sloppy really. Think about it for a second. What does a rocket launcher need to work? Rockets. Assume Buffy has two, one was used on the Judge and the other saved for a rainy day. This means that the rocket launcher is only for emergencies. Emergencies where you can get into a place with a rocket launcher. They would also have to be time critical because otherwise slower means can be used. The Judge went to a large place that was public so Buffy could drag in a rocket launcher. She needed to kill it very quickly otherwise all those people would be dead and it would be stronger. Hence the rocket launcher.
The Mayor in snake form wasn’t a time critical kill. The rocket launcher could be used but better to lure it to a huge amount of explosives where the blast would definitely nail the head.
Adam was holed up in the iniative’s complex. Good luck getting a rocket launcher in there. Also Adam was fast enough to kill Buffy while she set up for its use. That’s why the Scoobies Combine to Form Mega-Slayer!!! strategy was used.
Finally there is Glory. She’s fast enough to dodge a rocket. Buffy was forced to fight her close up. If one of the other Scoobies used the rocket launcher, well I’m no weapon expert but it seems to me that if you hit Glory with it while Buffy’s grappling with her or even in the same area Buffy isn’t going to walk from that fight.
Basically the rocket launcher has very limited circumstances in which it should be used and not just because Buffy probably doesn’t have an infinite amount of rockets.
Oh and thanks Dinsdale for the spelling note. I was aware of the Hecate spelling and that’s who was being invoked but the other spelling got in my head somewhere along the way and won’t leave. Probably from some stupid book on “ancient wisdom” I read for Religions in America.
Something else that struck me about last nite’s Buffysode was that they’re finally, five seasons after Angel’s Moment of Happiness[sub][sup]TM[/sub][/sup], and the tragic consequences thereof, getting into the philosophical/metaphysical implications of what it means to be all soul-having. The theme was touched on, but just barely, early on in S3, after Angel returned from Hell, but before Giles and the Scoobies found out, but it was never really explored. So far, this season, the question has been asked, and we’ve learned that having a soul doesn’t mean you pick up your own wet towels from off the bathroom floor. I hope they explore the issue in more depth as the season goes on.
Oh, and pepperlandgirl, some of the new spoilers at Spoilerslayer.com have got me worried. Please tell me everything’s going to be alright.
The jacket seems to have two effects. The first influences the females of the cast. It also influences the wearer. Notice the older brother loses his willpower and drive after he gives the jacket to RJ. RJ is described as having a personality change as he starts wearing the jacket. I think theprimary purpose of the jacket is on the wearer, the love spell is a side effect.
audit1: Could be that, but I thought it was more of a “woman want to be with him, men want to be him” sort of thing (except for that one woman who wanted him to be a woman, but I digress) Women get all psycho-horny when they see someone wearing the jacket, men perceive the guy as being “really cool.” Or, the fact that the guy wearing the jacket is being mobbed by cute girls in and of itself is enough for other guys to perceive him as “cool.”
sigh I wish I could. I’ve been frantically checking the boards, spoilerslayer, reading William the Poet (if he doesn’t actually WORK for ME, he’s awfully close to someone there…) and so far I’ve got nothing. I’m cautiously optimistic because there is a confrontation between Buffy and Spike in Ep 8 and he’s not dusty in ep 9.
I think a lot of what happened last night is going to be important in the upcoming weeks and Spike’s story.
Anyone else completely confused by the Train Rescue? I mean, draw me a map where it’s quicker to climb on the train, then jump off the train (on to her back), get up, and get to Dawn ahead of the train she just jumped off? Logic went out the window for that scene.
It’s clear that Buffy was able to use the rocket launcher she’d procured from the earlier episode. But what’s more puzzling: where was Anya able to get a black ski mask? We’ve never seen her wear all black before, so she must have purchased the clothes earlier and put them together, presumably from two separate outfits. But a black ski mask is clearly not something that most people living in southern California would have ready access to. And although evil, Anya has said many times that she is against stealing (especially when it’s from her), so we can’t assume that she had it from previous escapades as a thief.
We saw that RJ visited after dark, and Willow and Anya began their plans on the same night, so she would have had to buy the ski mask that same night. There’s been no indication in any other episode that a small town like Sunnydale is going to have an all-night sporting goods supply store?
AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Who are you people? Come on! It was a comedy! I think some of y’all could analyze the fun out of anything!
And as long as I’m posting:
– Best episode of the season so far, and better than 99% of the episodes last season. (Although the geek trio had their moments).
– Excellent use of the theme from “A Summer Place.” I just wish that when Dawn discovered Buffy and RJ together, they’d used music from The Graduate instead of that completely indistinct jangly pop music.
– I thought it was ironic that the episode was about girls going all swoony over some guy, since Anya, Willow, and Buffy, have never looked hotter than last night. AND Kim Deal was in it! (though not nearly long enough) AND there was another commercial with Kristin Kruek in between! It was all I could do not to just faint dead away; if Faith had made a surprise appearance I really do think I would’ve exploded.
– “…It’s about physical presence.” “His physical presence has a penis.” “I can work around that.”
The analyzing is the fun part. Some people like to think about what they watch, rather than just let it in to bounce around unimpeded inside of their skulls.