OK, I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns on FX a few weeks ago- I had never watched the show. Thought the movie was cool, but not much of a premise to build an entire TV series on, but you can only watch the same Star Trek:TOS episode so many times…
Anyhoo, I’m hooked. Teusday, I watched a current-season episode for the first time, and I have some questions, like
Where’s Giles?
When did Willow start displaying lesbian tendencies?
3)Buffy and Spike? Spike?
4)How can Szander afford that way-cool apartment? For that matter, what’s the whole crew doing for money?
5)Where’s Giles?
He left to go back to England thinking it was time to let Buffy be an adult and on her own. He felt she relied on him too much and he loved her too much to let her stand on her own if he thought he could help her. It was kind of a mother (or in this case father) bird kicking the young out of the nest, only he left instead.
When did Willow start displaying lesbian tendencies?
Shortly after Oz left her during their 1st year of college. Evil Willow was always “kinda gay”.
3)Buffy and Spike? Spike?
MMmmmmm, Spike. Yes, Buffy & Spike. After being neutered by the Initiative during Buffy & the gang’s 1st year of college (currently showing now on FX) he found that he could only hurt non-humans so he, reluctantly at first, started working with Buffy et. al. It was during this time that he fell in love with Buffy (and yes, he does love her).
Of course she was disgusted by the mere idea of it and told him so at every opportunity. After she died and Willow resurrected her she felt … off. It was difficult for her being back on Earth (she thought she had been in Heaven, while Willow thought she was rescuing her from who knows what) and she felt drawn to Spike in spite of her self.
Basically, he was the only one that could make her feel anything and so she used him. She realised it was wrong and broke it off with him, but he’s none too happy about it.
4)How can Szander afford that way-cool apartment? For that matter, what’s the whole crew doing for money?
Xander can afford that way-cool apartment because he has a nice construction job.
Willow as far as I can tell lives off scholorship money (or maybe her mom’s helping out), it’s not really discussed, but she does live with Buffy, so rent is taken care of.
Anya co-owns (or out right owns, I forget) the Magic Box. Giles arranged it when he left.
Buffy was working for a fast food place. She might still be, I don’t know, they don’t mention it that often anymore and I can’t remember if she quit.
5)Where’s Giles?
Anthony Stewart Head decided he wanted to spend more time with his family in England so Giles decided to move to England). There is supposed to be a BBC show being developed with ASH called Watcher about Giles’ adventures back home. I don’t know if this is still happening though.
Giles went back to England, muttering something about Buffy never growing up unless he left her to come into her own. The real reason was reportedly (I believe Joss himself said this) Anthony Stewart Head wanted to live in England and spend time with his family, which is understandable. He should be back for guest appearances, though, for some arcane reason, he didn’t come for Xander and Anya’s wedding. Maybe he knew it wasn’t gonna happen. Also, somewhere down the road, Joss is planning on a spinoff starring Giles, called Ripper. This I want to see.
Willow’s gayness (or probably bisexuality) was firmly established at the end of the fourth season, in an episode where Oz comes back for her and she wants to stay with Tara, but it was hinted at even back in the third season. In the episodes The Wish and, even more notably, Doppelgangland, the vampire Willow is pretty obviously bisexual. The real Willow remarks something about being glad that becoming a vampire totally changes someone’s personality and Buffy cuts Angel off when he tries to refute that. Anyway, vampire doppelgangers notwithstanding, our Wil started hanging a lot with Tara in the beginning of season four and it became pretty obvious to the viewership, if not to her friends, what was going on offscreen.
Buffy and Spike. Jebus, I don’t think I can explain this very well. Buffy died at the end of season five, right? So she comes back, ripped from Heaven (or a Heaven dimension) by Willow and her magical friends, and is not happy to be returned to our mortal coil of pain and violence. Spike’s been hardcore lusting after the Buffster since his return to Sunnydale in season four and after a chip was placed in his head that renders him totally unable to commit violence against humans (Don’t ask, another long story), he became closer to our favorite Scooby gang. Then, a few episodes into the current season (This is post-Lazarus Buffy), Spike accidentally realizes that he can hurt Buffy, but only Buffy. After he reveals this to her, she is convinced that she somehow came back wrong, and kind of uses this as an excuse to boink Spike, whom she knew to be a willing participant. At least, she uses this excuse to Tara, but the excuse she tells Xander is that it’s just so hard to live in this world after being in Heaven, or what have you. Both excuses are probably aspects of the truth, but a few episodes ago, Buffy finally did the right thing and broke it off with Spike, on the grounds that she was just using him to get through the day without ever really respecting him. I should probably have put an “IMHO” disclaimer before the “Buffy did the right thing” there, 'cause that’s a point of some debate.
Xander is a construction worker of no mean skill, evidently, and he and Anya (who owns the Magic Box) were, before they split up, presumably sharing the cost of the house. Buffy’s had significant financial difficulties ever since her mom died. Giles bailed her out once with a big check, but now his checkbook is at least one ocean away, so she got a job working the fast food counter at the friendly neighborhood Doublemeat Palace. She’s not very good at her job, but it is secure ‘cause she knows some corporate secrets that they don’t want in the papers. Don’t bother asking the obvious question that every Buffy fan has asked ever since they came up with the “Buffy is poor” storyline. We don’t know why the Watcher’s Council doesn’t just pay her in the same way they pay a Watcher. As far as I know, Willow’s still livin’ on her parents’ dime, going to school, and may not even be paying rent at Buffy’s house. Ditto on Tara, though I suppose she’s (SPOILER FOR THIS WEEK’S BUFFY!!!) not technically living on anyone’s dime anymore… Poor Willow and Tara. I think I’m gonna cry…
And as for your last question, refer to my first answer.
Well, judging by some of the posts in the other Buffy threads, the show has its water skis on, the speedboat is revving its motor, and the underwatercam is panning the shark pen. So, it’s probably for the best that the show is only going on for one more season.
I hate to see a good show jump the shark.
Now, more questions.
What happens with Riley?
2)Does Parker ever get his comeuppance for using Buffy and dumping her?
3)What gives with Adam?
4)What happens to the Initiative?
Harmony? (She made a cool shallow high-school rich bitch, but she sucks as a vampire)
The cool thing about this show is that it has a remarkable internal consistency, and continuous threads, things that pop up in an episode, then resurface as a major plot point later on.
Oh, and did anyone else have Kathy figured for a demon from the moment she put up the Celine Dion poster?
He doesn’t feel loved enough, so dumps Buffy early in season five. Goes off to kill things in South America, and marries an uber-tough special-forces type worman.
Buffy beats him unconscious with a stick. Really!
He’s a crazy cyborg/demon/human hybrid with a messiah complex.
Adam takes control of the Initiative computers and releases all of their captured demons. There’s a big demon/soldier battle, which Adam hopes will leave both sides in iddy biddy pieces so he can patch them together into more cyborg/demon/human hybrids. Buffy shows up, kicks his ass, and leads the surviving Iniative soldiers out of the complex. The Government considers the Iniative a failure and shuts it down, but uses former Iniative troops to form an elite anti-demon squad. After Buffy catches him patronizing vampire bordellos (really!), Riley rejoins with the elite commandos and hies it to South America.
I like her better as a vampire, because her personality is so totally unchanged, except now she bursts into flame in direct sunlight. She’s so hilariously whiney and moronic.
Just want to add a few points to and/or clarify what others have said:
At the beginning of season 4 she’s still straight, she and Oz are doing really good, so of course something happens to cause them to break up. Although for once this actually wasn’t Joss’ fault, Seth Green wanted off the show, so his character had to be written out.
The breakup sends Willow into a nasty emotional tailspin, from which she begins to recover when she makes a new friend, Tara. Then, for most of the second half of the season they do the Dance of Subtext, designed to make us scratch our heads and ask, hey wait are they just friends, or…?
Finally near the end of the season subtext becomes maintext, Willow tells her friends that she and Tara are lovers. So by the end of the season she is a lesbian, or at least in a lesbian relationship.
Ok, I don’t want to set off another round of the Great Spike Debate in this thread, so I will just say here that Spike has done some good things since falling for Buffy, things that the chip doesn’t force him to do, most notably protecting Dawn during the summer in which Buffy was dead (and as far as Spike knew, not coming back, so he wasn’t earning any points with her).
Others have covered this well, I just want to emphasize that the characters’ financial considerations are never mentioned except in the service of idiotic plotlines.
Quoting as best I can remember:
Willow: (agitated) Look at me! I’m all evil and skanky, and…(whispering) I think I’m kinda gay!
Buffy: Don’t worry Will, the personality of the vampire has nothing to do with the person it was.
Angel: Well, actually…(notices that Buffy is giving him a Cold Stare)…good point.
His character is written off the show, so the writers had to figure out a way to break him and Buffy up, a problem they solve by having Riley act way out of character. Seriously, they screwed this one up badly, but no one seems to care as no one seemed to like Riley very much.
Essentially, they say it’s disbanded, but then promptly reconstitute it under (I presume) a different name.
I must disagree. In high school I never noticed her, as a vamp she is a hoot. Wait 'till you see her get minions…
Re: Xander’s apt - for some reason, I sorta thought he was living in Glory’s old place. Can’t recall them ever saying as much, don’t know why he would, and I don’t have tapes to study. Mainly, I think I came to think this because they so often intro an X/A domestic scene with an exterior shot that reminds me of the same way they set up shots of Glory and the drip boys playing house.
He got the apartment in season five’s The Replacement, which also featured the actor’s identical twin brother, Kelly Donovan.
Remember?
Willow: If you get the apartment, this’ll be your hallway. And we’ll walk down the hall and say, “La, la, I’m on my way to Xander’s.”
Buffy: Just warning you, Xander, I probably won’t be doing that.
Riley: Really? I will.
Glory is last season’s big bad- she was a hellgod who came in search of the Key (Dawn) and shared the same body with her brother Ben. They morphed back and forth and struggled for control. Buffy beat them down with the help of Willow in The Gift (end of last season), but it was ultimately Giles who killed 'em. He killed Ben (the human one who could be killed.) effectively killing them both.
The Big Bad for Season 4 is Adam, and by extension, The Initiative.
That’s one of the reasons I didn’t like Season 4 very much. Adam would have been a great Big Bad if he had been introduced earlier in the season, but as it were, things really didn’t start happening until there were only 3 or 4 episodes left. And the last episode was Restless and didn’t have anything to do with Adam/Big Bad.
About season 4: Supposedly it got screwed up because of unplanned-for actor departures…not just Seth Green (Oz), but also Lindsey Crouse (Prof. Walsh). Apparently the Veruca storyline was supposed to go on longer, and perhaps there was going to be more of a Frankenstein/Frankenstein’s Monster relationship between her and Adam, and maybe also some competition for Riley’s loyalty between her and Buffy.
It seems to me there was a lot of squandered potential in season 4. Although I must say, looking back now from the vantage point of late season 6, it is looking better and better.
I know about Seth Green’s early departure, but this is the first I’ve heard about Lindsey Crouse making an “unplanned-for actor departure”. Where did you come across this info? According to The Watcher’s Guide: Volume 2, Crouse was very disappointed that her character died mid-season, but apparently this was planned from the beginning. After her first several appearances, she went to Joss Whedon to ask how her character would be developed, and he told her: “Oh, you’re going to create a monster, and it’s going to kill you. You’re going to die and it’s going to be great!”
To answer another poster who asked about what the big bad is in Season Four, it reminds me of something I read on another website. It theorized that Seasons Two, Three and Four all followed the same basic pattern. The season starts with a Little Bad, then there’s a betrayal, and then the Big Bad is revealed.
SEASON TWO:
Little Bad = Spike & Dru
Betrayal = Angel
Big Bad = Angelus
SEASON THREE
Little Bad = Mr. Trick
Betrayal = Faith
Big Bad = The Mayor
SEASON FOUR
Little Bad = Maggie Walsh
Betrayal = Maggie Walsh
Big Bad = Adam
It’s a pretty good theory…but Seasons Five and Six pretty much blew it. Eh, it’s good that the show tries not to be too predictable. As much as it’s gone downhill, it’s still one of the best hours on television.
Well, hopefully since there’s only going to be one more season, the show will let go of the tow rope before it jumps the shark.
Just caught the episode where Faith comes out of her coma. Now, am I mistaken, or has she used the Gadget the Mayor bequeathed her to pull a body-switch on the Buffstress?
Was the breakup with Xander that hard on her? (Missed that episode, but from what I can tell, all he did was kiss Willow, and all hell broke loose in the Buffyverse.)
Well, Thea, you have to understand that Cordy was the Queen of SunnyDale High. At the beginning she opening mocked and ridiculed Xander and Willow. As her and Xander’s relationship progressed, and she gave up her friends, and by extension, her popularity, she expressed displeasure in his close relationship with Willow. So when he kissed Willow, after she finally came to terms with the fact that she really liked Xander, after she gave up her friends, she felt incredibly betrayed. And I don’t blame her.
Yes, Faith pulled a switcharoo on Buffy. The next episode has an extremely interesting scene with Spike…and I don’t think Spike ever found out that it was really Faith…
