Do I have to do that? Is there anyone else who hadn’t seen it before?
I thought it was very good, but had some huge annoying plot holes. Mostly, it came off as very ambitious and interesting, but- why didn’t Whatshername pull the damn fire alarm when she was being chased by the Gentlemen? They weren’t deaf, just dumb. Maybe if all the kids were alerted they could have at least barricaded themselves in somewhere safe. And why didn’t they Gentlemen kill more than a couple of people a night? The whole population were sitting ducks.
I loved the Xander/Onya/Spike interactions, and the Gentlemen were damn creepy. I’m sort of waiting for one to float by right now. I still think the Die Kindergott scared me more, but they take second place.
Buffy geeks, what were your favourite parts, and can anyone fanwank answers about those questions?
Oliver W. Holmes once said, “Detached reflection cannot be expected in the presence of an uplifted knife.” When the adrenaline is coursing through your veins during a fight or flight moment you don’t always think to do the most logical thing. As for the rest, who knows why the Gentlemen only harvested a few hearts at a time? They’re demons from another dimension.
My favorite part is the slide show. Willow brings popcorn, Giles went to the trouble to provide a soundtrack, Buffy is offended at the width of her likeness, and everyone seriously misunderstands when she mimes staking. It serves as exposition, but also as the perfect comic relief to maximize the creepiness surrounding it.
I agree. Rituals may seem silly in our world, but they are very important in the Buffyverse. Whatever dark magic the gentlemen were doing may have depended on harvesting a specific number of hearts at specific times.
Perhaps not any heart will do. You may recall the Gentlemen congregated back at their headquarters, giving little silent golf claps to the successful heart collectors thus far. That seems to suggest something more than just “Pick a person, grab his heart,” is required.
And as to the fire alarm – I notice you don’t quibble at the scene where, after realizing their voices are gone, Xander calls Buffy and she picks up the phone before they both realize the futility of using a phone. Riley and Forrest use the secret elevator to get to the Initiative without remembering they need voice authorization to avoid “lethal countermeasures.” If you’re OK with those mistakes, why quibble at terrified people being chased by monsters and forgetting about the possibility of a fire alarm?
My favorite bit was Anya making her wishes to carnally abuse Xander known by charades.
Lots of future themes and arcs were foreshadowed or furthered by this episode: technology that tries to kill the people who created it, Willow/Tara, the mental.witchy power of Willow, the conflict between Riley/Initiative and the Scoobies, lots going on.
Well, yes. I was wondering how Riley and whatshisname got out of the lethal trap, too.
The sort-of straittjacket things the… whatever they were, the assistants, were wearing, were neat.
I wish Buffy and Riley’s conversation was shown. Haven’t watched the next one yet- if they do, don’t spoil it.
I like Anya and Xander’s dysfunctional relationship more and more. “All you want is lots and lots of orgasms!” And Spike eating all the cereal.
Is Giles living on his Fortune Amassed from Succesful Librarianing, or is that a picky question?
Basically. Earlier in season 4 someone (Willow or Xander) refers to Giles’ new bum-like lifestyle. He corrects them by telling them he is a “Gentlemen of Leisure.”
My favorite moment of the entire episode is Giles’ reaction to Buffy’s ill-advised gesture during the slideshow. Xander and Willow both have expressions of confusion and mild horror, but Giles just…freezes. It’s as if he decided, “If I move or breathe, I may die from embarrassment.”
I also love how the only business that remains open in Sunnydale is the liquor store.
Just watched this episode last night, though it must be the fourth or fifth time for me.
I love Giles’ slideshow too. I like that he had enough of a sense of drama to have slides that just say ’ Then…’ and so forth. His little drawings are entertaining too, especially the unexpectedly violent ones showing the Gentlemen removing the hearts.
I’m pretty sure that in Giles’ slide show one of his slides says they needs seven and have at least three. Now you’re gonna make me have to dig out the DVD.
OK, we see the Gentlemen entering a house in Giles’ neighborhood. We see them grab a college student and start to harvest his heart. We also see three hearts in the clock tower after the first night of harvest. Giles’ slide says “they have at least two” which presumably is based on Buffy’s eyewitness account and the newspaper story saying that a teenage girl had been killed.
ETA: at the fight at the clock tower on night three, it’s hard to see exactly how many jars are filled but to me it looks like five.
That they don’t show the conversation is genius. The whole theme of the episode is their inability to communicate with each other. They communicate most effectively when their voices are stolen from them. Then with voices back, they can’t speak.
Giles up until last season was pulling down both a salary as the school librarian and a salary as a Watcher. I don’t imagine that high school librarians make a great deal of money (mother certainly didn’t when she was one but that was in the 50s and 60s) but given the vast resources of the Watcher’s Council, I imagine that the Watcher actively responsible for that generation’s Slayer’s health, safety and training pulled in a fair amount of coin. He got fired from the Watchers’ Council (no indication if the staff of Sunnydale High got any sort of stipend or compensation but presumably “place of employment blew up” is grounds for receiving unemployment compensation) but based on his first car I’d say he tended to live rather frugally anyway. Giles is also recognized as an international expert on antiquities and artifacts, having at one time worked for the British Museum, so there is the possibility he picked up the odd dollar writing articles and delivering lectures.
Yeah, it really was. The whole job and mortgage thing was really kind of silly. If the Slayer needs help keeping her house and supporting her little sister then you give her that support so she can keep her mind on slaying.
My impression is that Buffy wasn’t interested in turning to the Council for help after her several previous poor experiences with them. It may also have been that the Council didn’t know she was active again following her second death. Was there any indication of contact, other than Giles showing back up? And it largely didn’t matter after the first few episodes of season 7 anyway, since Council go BOOM.
