Didja notice they were using some very Matrix-y music cues during that fight scene in the dark?
Giles’ slitting the Bringer’s throat was totally out of character. Holy crap, he really was killed in England. That’s why he’s been acting so Ripper-y. Something really weird is going on with him.
The scenes between Buffy and Spike were absolutely great, in my opinion. Hasn’t every girl in the world wanted somebody to say exactly that to her? The way he held her and gently kissed her hair - that was just lovely. All the other sex going on - that was obviously desperate-for-some-human-touch-before-we-go-into-battle sex. I loved the way they cut between the sweaty stuff and Buffy and Spike just being tender with each other.
I loved this episode. The last two have been magic for me. Hey, if I can put up with Dawn and even get to like her a little, I can enjoy just about anything (except Faith - she totally has to get whacked). I agree with you, Gaspode. When Buffy’s good, it’s very good, and when it’s not up to its usual standard, it’s still better than 90% of what’s on tv. (But I thought today was excellent.)
I think Giles slit the Bringer’s throat because he didn’t want the Girls to hear anymore “We’re going to kill you bitches, die, die, die” crap. I think it made total sense. Giles wanted the Bringer to shut up right NOW instead of demoralizing the troops completely.
We’re past S hour?
On reflection, it’s clear that the interview was over, and that Giles wasn’t taking a chance on the Bringer escaping later on. But it seemed very OOC while it was happening.
Hmm. I think that Giles was just tired of Andrew talking.
I’m mixed on tonight’s episode as many are.
What I liked, and what I think makes the episode deserve a 5/10 minimium is that Buffy is finally being smart again. She realizes that she can’t fight Caleb but that he has something of hers. She wants to get past him and realizes there is a way to do that safely. I’m glad they went with her employing agility as opposed to strength. It annoys me to no end when suddenly she can beat an opponent even though nothing has happened to make her better between the two encounters. Tonight she fought smart while Caleb tried to smash her.
As for the sword in the stone idea I don’t think that’s the case at all. The First was telling Caleb to kill Buffy. There is no reason to tell him that unless the First wants Caleb to kill Buffy. Also in their private conversations they were concerned about her getting it. They are trying to circumvent her rightful ownership of it. I think once she has it she’ll have it and there isn’t anything that they can do about it. I’m hoping it is something cooler than what was in Angel’s retarded fantasy.
I think that the sex/snuggle contrast was a good idea but wasn’t implemented well enough. The Faith/Wood pairing was fine. I buy the intentional chemistrilessness of it. The Anya/Xander one was typical for them, after all that’s what they do when the world is threatened and their right near eachother. Willow/Kennedy didn’t work because ME has the delusion that there is chemistry between the two and tried to make it tender. It should have had the same edge of desperation and pointlessness up front. It would have played better. Additionally ME should have made them all a bit more if not passionate reckless and violent. Less air time but more damage done to the surroundings during those few moments. Maybe an actual shriek or two as they were being discussed. It would have been stronger if it was real end of the world out of one’s mind panic sex.
Oh and am I the only one who was hoping that Willow would have a magical reflex at the moment? Turn Kennedy inside out or into the image of Tara or something else cool?
Finally I agree that the cliffhanger would have been better if the bomb just went off when it was kicked open.
On preview: robertliguori if Giles was tired of Andrew talking then it would have been Andrew with the slit throat not the Bringer.
Since when is Matrixx-time an option in the Buffyverse?
Definitely an episode written with the shippers in mind. My wife is a Spuffy fan, and she was engrossed.
Doesn’t most everything on TV resolve into a cliche? At least the final Buffy ep isn’t going to be a clip show and a rehash of a timeline you found on the web (X-Files).
Slow-motion existed before the Matrix.
Don’t they do slow-mo moves on Angel?
…What a terrible but necessary episode.
Buffy is still the most unlikable character on the show…wait… second most… Kennedy takes the cake.
The bomb thing was obvious from the get go.
Faith’s scene with the Mayor was the only scene that wasn’t giggleworthy.
I like that Buffy was right with her plan with the winery… but had done such a shitty job leading, the troops had a right to rebel.
And anyone else feel that Buffy is way too important… Seriously. She’s NOT the true Slayer anymore. She’s the anomaly. Faith should be the Firsts’ focus. The Slayer line runs through her now.
I’m as surprised as anyone, but I actually liked this episode. I mean, it was a long way from perfect, but it all evened out. First, though, that scene with Kennedy and Willow was nasty. I was actually yelling at the screen, “Blargh! Get off of her!” I hope it was just a case of the actress playing Kennedy’s being so vile that she was ad-libbing and actually believed that that would be a turn-on.
But the scene with Spike’s pep talk to Buffy was dead-on. If it were possible for one scene to save an entire sorry season, that would be the one. It not only worked for the episode, and made it clear exactly why he’s been drawn to her all this time, it actually made Buffy’s character over the past few years make sense. Partly. That was extremely well-done.
As for her special moves against Caleb, that wasn’t weird at all. Remember that slow-mo-as-super-fast-reaction-time was perfected on “The Six Million Dollar Man,” thank you very much, and I don’t want to hear any more of this “Matrix” stuff. She didn’t get these powers “all of a sudden,” she’d just been arrogant and over-determined and was fighting him the wrong way. When she first met him, she had no reason to believe he’d be that strong.
As for the axe-that-can-kill-anything, I’m fine with that. The plot has never been the point of these shows; it’s all about the allegory/symbolism/whatever. The meat of the story has been in Buffy finding the source of her power – if that turns out to be a giant axe, sure.
No, the whole point of the last couple of episodes, if not the series as a whole, is that Buffy is “the one.” It’s not because of her powers, or her lineage, or even her friends (who can abandon her); it’s because of what she does and the choices she makes.
If you mean “the one” meaning the shows namesake and therefore the main character… then I’ll give you that…
Buffy makes tough choices, bully for her… but honestly… has she been a likable hero at all this season. She’s self-righteous, self-indulgent, and out of touch. She’s ceased being a hero to me at this point…and desperately needs to go bad or redeem herself.
For me, in order to redeem herself, Buffy would need to learn to speed read, go through every manual on tactics and strategy in her local library, train everyone around her in basic martial arts skills so they don’t keep getting killed or maimed or in the way, take a series of management courses with an emphasis on human relations, throw in a Dale Carnegie seminar, find a good counselor and work out her communications issues, drill her allies in close combat teamwork, accumulate a stash of weapons ranging from concealable daggers to high explosives and train in their uses, and pull her head out of her small intestine. Not likely in the next two shows.
I can forgive a certain amount of incompetence in my TV heroes; otherwise the plot takes a lot of effort to write. But to have a hero that’s not only incompetent, but humorless and insensitive as well, not to mention whiny as hell, gets old pretty fast. Man, I miss the Buffy we knew in seasons 1 and 2. She was fun, she liked what she did, and although her planning skills were about zilch, she at least was flexible when she approached a dangerous situation. She’s given up all of her advantages, and gotten nothing, absolutely nothing in return.
This episode: lame writing (Kennedy’s speech had to be improvised. Had to. I hope.).
Lame acting; Spike seemed like he was just phoning it in, in bad lighting nonetheless. Everyone else seemed halfway out of character all the time, except Andrew.
Lame, lame plot. It’s way too much buildup to throw in a Deus Ex Machina, but hey, it’s too late in the season to go out any other way. Here, have a big honkin’ axe. Pull it out of a stone for Chrissakes. The writers have given the heck up. And if it wasn’t so close to the end of the series, so would I.
That’s actually kind of why I liked Spike’s speech – he told her that he’s seen her at her worst and he still loves her because it’s part of who she is. Buffy has never been that great a character, but one of the things I like about the series is that she’s not perfect. She’s always been self-indulgent and self-righteous; that’s just part of who she is. The writing hasn’t exactly been consistent all throughout the series, and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s performance definitely hasn’t, but they do touch on it occasionally. The speech reminded me that it’s been part of her character all along. She’s flawed and selfish, but when it’s time to take on her responsibility, she does it, no matter what the cost. That’s what makes her the hero, not just because her name’s in the title.
Flawed is one thing… Outright unlikable/a terrible person is very different.
This season she has clearly shown that she picks what is best for HER not what is right …I think there’s a bid difference between wanting to go on a date rather than on patrol (which was typical Buffy selfishness) and keeping an agent of the First around her charges. She should have killed Spike or spent her time trying to figure out what the trigger was… something she didn’t do. Giles and Wood were in the right. Buffy was endangering EVERYTHING because she liked having Spike around. And when it came time to deal with Justice Demon Anya… she was all too quick to kill first.
In my opinion she’s yet to really be a hero this season in the overall storyarc.
I really think a lot of the problems in this season are because they had to have those pesky SIT’s in there.
As the Peroxided One pointed out in LMPTM, the Slayer ultimately fights alone. Solo, even. Yeah, she can get by with a little help from her friends, but when it comes down to brass tacks, the Slayer is alone.
Buffy’s role should not be leading an army. That’s not how the Slayer is supposed to work. She’s supposed to live by her wits and fight her own battles. Sure, the Scoobies can help with the research and the odd spell here and there, but she should be a Ninja, not a general.
SolGrundy: I know ‘The Matrix’ didn’t invent those moves, but it’s a good shorthand of telling about the action, that everyone will understand.
Buffy had moves like that, when she faught Adam. But then, she was in a trance like state. And she wasn’t running on walls.
In one of the commentaries on one DVD (I forget which), Joss Wheadon says osmething about a jump that Buffy’s made (on screen). I can’t remember it exactly, bnut it’s more or less: “We try to avoid doing those kind of showy stunts. Buffy is not about that.”
And yet, in the third to last episode ever, ME uses this as a way to get out of a plot twist. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. And very contrived.
I keep coming back to ‘Conversations with dead people’, which more and more seems to be the best episode of this year. Buffy was saying that she thinks she’s special. Think about it - she’s like a Brittney Spears or Macauly Culkin - a very young person who’s suddenly turned into something very special. A young ego can’t handle these things, most of the time. Many of these people stop evolving as persons and end up being ‘me, me, me’. Buffy is now 23. Still quite young. And she’s taken care of five apocalypses (loosly speaking). Of course she feels special. And at the same time, her late teens and early 20’s have not given her the opportunity to evolve like a normal person. In a way, I think the writing has been very consistent this year. This is what Buffy would turn out to be, had this been real life.
MrVisible
“For me, in order to redeem herself, Buffy would need to learn to speed read…”
I agree. And this is what’s happened on Angel this year. Not that he went to classes, and he still makes mistakes. But they work as a team. They have an arsenal. The weapon of choice is still the ax, sword or knife, but when needed, a gun will be used. There is no pointless exposition in the fighting, as seen last week on Angel, and blatantly done wrong this week on Buffy.
I was never a Spuffy shipper, so the tender scene did nothing for me. The three other sex scenes… I stand by my opinion that they were there just to show off. The same people could’ve had sex, without it being so explicit.
I really can’t see what’s to like about this episode as a whole. Out of 142 ep’s so far, this is certainly in there with Go fish, Bad Eggs and Ted. The best part was the mayor as a shining beacon of a villain, the kind Jasmine was on Angel. Radiating good mood and benevolence, while plotting to kill everyone. This is the true face of evil, not something slimy lurking in a basement. It’s like Hitler holding a child and kissing it, and caring about dogs. It’s Saddam Hussein walking the streets of Baghdad, smiling as people cheer him.
A point to be made: European TV is a lot more liberal when it comes to sex. The scenes were nothing for us, who grew up seing things like this on tv, and with actors without their undies. So maybe I’m thinking it’s contrived because it has zero news value for me. I read somewhere that the lesbian community applaudes the scene with Kennedy/Willow, because it furthers the visibility. Yeah, whatever. The movie Bound was shown on broadcast tv here at 8 p.m.
I shall break my silence for once because of one single moment in the show.
At one point, Caleb and TFE (as Buff) are chatting about their pretty new weapon and all the work it is to get it free of the rock, when TFE asks, “Do the Bringer’s sweat?” and Caleb replied, “I think they pant. Like a dog.”
This tickled me silly. I sounded exactly like it came out of The First’s Journal.
This episode just left me cold. Everybody has pre-battle sex: yawn. (May I just point out that Kennedy is so not worthy?) I would much rather have seen character interaction, especially between Willow, Xander, and Giles: “Did we do the right thing by kicking our old, good friend out of her own house?”
Buffy’s fight with Caleb didn’t ring true, either. Have we seen her fight like that before? Did she pick up some of Connor’s hell dimension fighting moves?
First, let me get something out of the way:
DIE KENNEDY DIE. SHUT THE HELL UP YOU TALENTLESS HACK. YOU MADE SEX WITH WILLOW DISGUSTING. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? I HOPE THAT BOMB SPLATTERS YOU TORI SPELLING ASS ALL OVER THE WALLS. ARGH!!!
Sorry, I feel much better now.
Again, another very off and on episode. Much of the first half was simply horrible, and the somewhat ridiculous sex scenes seemed to be pandering to the various shipper camps. Although I did think the Anya and Xander scene was cute.
The ending picked up a bit, and it was nice to see Buffy acting use her head for something other then a hat rack. I was also a small twist-- the first that was not telegraphed to us in a long time (c.f. Angel, with the better writing and direction, and, on average, acting).
As far as the slow-mo action- it has been used all season on Angel.
Also, in regard to the special weapon- this is almost a Buffy cliche.
Remember the Judge? Olaf’s hammer? Although “pulling the sword from the stone” as it where does seem a bit, umm, borrowed.
I also enjoyed that, in the end, Buffy was right.
5/10.
Thank goodness Angel is coming back-- now we get to see a real vampire with a soul. [ducks and runs from angry Spike fans 
]
Sigh- forgot to preview. Sorry.