Mostly a good episode. I think Nicholas Brendon should win an Emmy for the gouging scene, his scream was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard on TV. Caleb has the potential to be a really good villian, I hope they don’t screw it up. Also I noticed a marked difference in Faith’s character from the Angel episodes and this. She was much better on Angel. Her reverting to old-Faith just seems lame when she showed that she was actually growing as a character.
Ok, did anybody else notice the bit where Buffy walks in to Caleb and says (paraphrased) “I hear you have something of mine” and he answers, “I do now.”
What was up with that???
And, personally, I think it’s nice that JW has found work for Mal and Zoe from Firefly.
I downloaded the episode so I could watch both it and American Idol without having to switch back and forth.
I hate to say it, but it’s time to end BtVS. The show has gotten really repetitive, the “here comes the apocalypse, whatever shall we do” has gotten old, and the spark and the wit of the show basically died when Buffy did on the WB.
That said, I liked Caleb, the serial killer preacher. He’d make an interesting Big Bad on his own without all this First Evil hugger mugger. He’s got a sort of nihilist Hazel Motes thing going on (read Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood”) which I really dig, but wassup with the superhuman strength? Is it a gift from the First Evil? Is Caleb not really human? (please, NOT another hell god!)
Xander getting his eye gouged out is excellent; it gives the audience yet another reason to really hate Caleb, and it gives Nick Brendon’s character greater dimension.
I wish I hadn’t read the synopses of the upcoming episodes–I’m not at all happy about the resolution of this arc.
The only worthwhile things in this ep were the Faith/Spike interaction and the blinding of Xander. Xander’s dream sequence? Total waste of time. Andrew’s flashback? Not worth the Vulcan joke payoff. Caleb? Ooh, a crazy preacher, haven’t seen that on TV before.
On the plus side, I got my greatly-reduced-in-price copy of “Tales of the Slayer, volume 1” in the mail today so I’ll have something to read on the plane tomorrow.
Bricker I disagree that there was any merit in going in to the situation. There are more options for dealing with this random guy once his location is found.
First start picking off Bringers. Even if you don’t use guns two Slayers with cross-bows with Spike and a few of the better trained SITs lying in ambus for those who come to find the snipers would have done wonders. Knock out the guy’s Bringer support. Even if Caleb was just a normal guy he was a normal guy who had a bunch of Bringers. With the quick recon there was no way to tell how many he might have. With the pick off strategy they either expend themselves stupidly and then retreat into the vinyard.
Second there are two people in the crew who could plausibly set up a mass demolition. If Willow using truly hard core destructive magic doesn’t seem right then instead have her cover Xander. Even if the plan fails and they are forced into an outright confrontation with Caleb at least they tried something smart, something the First didn’t expect. Buffy is tired of being called out and taunted by the forces of evil. They’re doing it because she always falls for their tricks and there is no reason for them to stop playing her this way.
Third there is a general sense of lack of actual preperation. No secured doors/panic room type set up for the SITs to fall back into or wait in should there be another mass Bringer strike. No modern weaponry that could be useful. No real attempt to figure out how to block out the First’s anti-pep talks. A stereosystem for instance.
Buffy pretty much tries to bludgeon everything to death with what ever she has on hand, including her friends and the SITs. So far it has pretty much worked because every enemy was fairly much irrelevant in the killing and the rest of the stuff mattered. It was just a matter of putting the right pieces together for a nifty fight scene so then things could move on to character stuff. Now that isn’t working and part of the point of the season seems to be that it isn’t working and yet Buffy refuses to change. As said above it will most likely be the case that infact it will work once again. That’s fine I suppose as long as what comes after is interesting.
As for Caleb’s taunt to Xander I believe that he trying to shatter the remains of the group’s morale. By flaunting the fact that they have no secret conversations as far as the First is concerned he furthers the blow to the morale. Alternatively Xander may have been, or soon be, onto something that will require him seeing something to put things together.
Did anyone else notice to sort of parallel views of women presented in this episode? Xander has porn dreams and Caleb says girls are dirty…kind of a Madonna/Whore thing. Maybe when he say Xander sees things, it means that he does…he has seen all of the characters at their best and worst, even himself, even if they haven’t, and he sees the way they should be and can be, like with Buffy. Yes, she is and has been a moron, but she can be better. He sees the potential.
Also, I was hoping Caleb would have “LOVE” and “HATE” on his hands. Would have been a nice movie reference. Interesting to see a Big Bad that looks older than Buffy (Well, the Master did, but that’s diffirent.)
Oh, and I hope Xander saved his eye patch from season 5…
Did anyone else notice to sort of parallel views of women presented in this episode? Xander has porn dreams and Caleb says girls are dirty…kind of a Madonna/Whore thing. Maybe when he say Xander sees things, it means that he does…he has seen all of the characters at their best and worst, even himself, even if they haven’t, and he sees the way they should be and can be, like with Buffy. Yes, she is and has been a moron, but she can be better. He sees the potential.
Also, I was hoping Caleb would have “LOVE” and “HATE” on his hands. Would have been a nice movie reference. Interesting to see a Big Bad that looks older than Buffy (Well, the Master did, but that’s diffirent.)
Did anyone else notice a sort of parallel view of women presented in this episode? Xander has porn dreams and Caleb says girls are dirty…kind of a Madonna/Whore thing. Maybe when he says Xander sees things, it means that he does…he has seen all of the characters at their best and worst, even himself, even if they haven’t, and he sees the way they should be and can be, like with Buffy. Yes, she is and has been a moron, but she can be better. He sees the potential.
Also, I was hoping Caleb would have “LOVE” and “HATE” on his hands. Would have been a nice movie reference. Interesting to see a Big Bad that looks older than Buffy (Well, the Master did, but that’s diffirent). I wanna see him on Angel, just because that group is so diffirent and more male-dominated. It would be especially cool to see what he culd do with Cordy and Fred.
I wish Caleb could have been introduced several episodes ago. Apart from his general loveliness and penchant for tight pants, he’s an interesting Bad thus far, much more interesting than the First. I liked the refrain of “dirty girls” running through his speeches (and in particular his final monologue), and that his fixation on them was left unexplained. Caleb seemed very X-Files to me for some reason, and I have yet to determine whether that’s bad or not.
Overall, Faith made a better impression on Angel than she did here, not counting her interaction with Spike in the basement, which incidentally was IMO the one good moment of acting in the entire episode from Sarah Michelle Gellar as she discovers them on Spike’s bed.
I’m still reeling from Xander’s eye. That was one of the few times I’ve actually yelled at the TV. I really hate eye trauma.
And I have some questions, since a non-Buffy-watching friend stopped by my place right before the last commercial break:
Giles wasn’t part of the vineyard invasion, was he? Was he still on the outs after Buffy told him off? Was Wood there? I had a hard time seeing a lot of what was happening during the fight scenes, due to what I considered crappy choreography and very shadowy lighting.
Buffy told Giles to stay behind with the less-apt SITs. Wood was not at the vineyard and I don’t recall seeing him during the rah rah all hands on deck pre-attack rally at Buffy’s place.
Oh, something else I liked about the ep was the baseball bat with the blade chunks embedded in it. That was sweet. Too bad the SIT wielding it was so incompetent with it.
He storyboarded this episode, actually, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote most of it either.
He did direct and write the finale and all I can say is hahahahahahahahahahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
I don’t tihnk Buffy was stupid for leading her troops into battle against Caleb. Like Bricker said, she had no reason to believe that Caleb was anything but a crazy preacher. At thta point all they knew is that he beat up a girl—oooooh, scary. And let’s face it, she has a pretty good team. Three supernatural creatures isn’t bad to have on your side of a fight, how was she to konw that three wasn’t enough? If she had gone to do recon, all she would have seen was Caleb standing around talking to himself, that wouldn’t have helped anybody. If she had gone to face him alone instead of bringing the “army” she probably would have died, and that certainly wouldn’t help anybody.
And finally, Buffy is always right. No, seriously, she is. Even if it seems she’s wrong now, Joss isn’t going to let his title character be wrong for long.
Did you read bubonicplague’s summaries of the episodes? I swear, sometimes she’s the only one keeping the spoilerwhores relatively sane.
It was part of the trap. Caleb didnt have anything of Buffy’s until she brought all the Potentials to him.
snort
I think it’s safe to say that Xander’s role in the season is pretty much done.
Someone asked Nick Brendon this at the Pasadena Con and he laughed for a really long time then joked about levitating. Xander doesn’t see shit. It’s another loose end that will never, ever be tied up. It’s good for an inspirational speech or two, but I think Xander’s always been basically blind to everything that didn’t directly fit into his model of Right and Wrong, Good and Bad.
Wood was originally going to play a different role because the season was going to be more focused on Dawn, High School, and her little friends. Enough people screamed and yelled about how stupid this is, including the UPN Execs, that that plan was quickly dropped.
But DB Woodside was contracted for 10 episodes. So around episode ten, Jane Espenson suggested that he be Nikki’s son so they can do something with Spike’s story. Joss liked the plan and ran with it.
Why is he sitll there after 17? I really, really don’t know. I can’t figure it out either, and now ever episode I hope he dies.
And whoever mentioned the firing before, it had nothing to do with Buffy’s skill as a guidance counselor, and you know it. It had everything to do with the events of 17, and I think Buffy was trying to take the high road there and offer the white flag of a truce. Wood is just a jackass. Besides, it really doesn’t matter anyway.
Actually she only brought a few with her.
Shoot- he hasn’t had a role for 2 seasons, along with Anya, Dawn, Giles and anyone else not named Spike, Willow or Buffy. Each would get a bone now and then, but the tradition of of all the players getting some good plot lines went out with the move to the WB. But hey-- we got Kennedy! :rolleyes:
Caleb was hot. I was NOT expecting that.
I liked this episode quite a bit.
4/5
Anyone else notice something about the big bads on BtVS and AtS, not only the obvious that they are both the leads from Firefly, but that they are both religious-like figures.
I found that interesting.
Also, I would pay good money to have heard Xander scream [pirate]“Arrrgh!”[/pirate] when he got his eye poked out.
This is making me a little crazy. I hoped, when Buffy rejected Giles’ tutelage that she’d go deep into her girl power to discover the knowledge and strength to get it done. Instead, she goes to Wood for advice. Then, when Spike seemed more resistant to the voice of Caleb, and quicker to get Xander away from him; I’m worried that ME is going to step away from the strong women they’ve been presenting.
I was hoping the Caleb might be little more like Jesse Custer from Preacher. I was waiting for the first shot that showed his pants, hoping they’d be white. I guess that wouldn’t have worked in the wine-spilling scene.
Yes, but in the context of both Willow and Wood laughing about her “getting promoted” in First Date, the point I was trying to make is that Buffy (occasionally seems to) wants to be a normal person, and she’s not good at anything normal (except clothes).
Earlier in this episode, Xander said he’d seen Buffy’s heart. Previously, I’d thought Xander’s ability to see things was foreshowing his becoming a watcher. Could be Xander will be half a Bringer now?, it was empathized is this episode that they don’t have eyes either.
I may be mistaken… but wasn’t that a preview for a repeat? Was that really all new? Because it looked like a repeat of BOTN or Showtime.
Just checked Loey’s guide… it’s a repeat of BOTN. Damn you, Accuvue!