I’m pretty sure they showed the trophy intact in Doomed. Didn’t they?
SPOILERS:
My real problem with the Willow Bottoms Out episode is that Whedon is switching metaphors midstream. Up 'til now, he’s consistently used magic as a metaphor for love: specifically, Willow and Tara’s relationship. When Willow and Tara are first dating, every time a normal show would have said, “Would you like to have sex?”* we get Willow asking Tara, “Would you like to cast a spell?” When Tara’s family shows up, Willow and Tara are levitating while slow dancing. In the Faith becomes Buffy two-parter, Willow apparently orgasms while casting a detection spell with Tara. And, of course, there’s Tara’s entire song in the musical. Now, out of nowhere, magic no longer equals love, it equals high-grade Colombian blow. This is such a drastic change in symbolism it gave me symbolic whiplash. Also, it set up the unfortunate interpretation that magic = lesbianism = dangerously addictive. Which I know isn’t what Whedon is trying to say, but it’s a difficult conclusion to avoid.
Ultimatly, I was hoping this story line would play out as Willow having some sort of personality flaw that would estrange her from the rest of the Scoobies. Instead, we get substnace abuse. Of the two options, the first lend itself to high Operatic tragedy, the second to new agey self help books. Instead of Das Rheingold, we get Women Who Abuse Magic and the Women Who Love Them.
Of course, despite the occasional disappointing episode, I’ve never been disappointed by an over-all story arc in Buffy, and I have faith that Joss will make everything okay in the end. of course, when I say “okay” I mean “so totally f*cked up it makes your head explode, but still really, really entertaining.”
And, for what it’s worth, I’m starting to lean away from the idea of Willow as the Big Bad for this season, if only because that’s what everybody expects now. Actually, I’m starting to think Buffy looks like a better prospect for Big Badness than Willow. She’s falling for Spike, she “came back wrong,” and she’s got plenty of good reasons to be royally PO’d at all of her friends. Plus, this would make the entire Spike storyline for the past three years an elaborate bluff: it’s not about Spike being redeemed, it’s about Buffy going to the dark side. Of course, keep in mind that I don’t think I’ve made a single accuracte guess about where Buffy is headed since I started watching last season, so I’m almost certainly wrong. Still, it’d be cool, eh?
[sub]*Hopefully using at least slightly more romantic terms than this, of course.[/sub]
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Just a quick question…
In the episode where Spike returns to Sunnydale (for the 2nd time) searching for a ring that makes vampires invincible while wearing it, Buffy obtains said ring from Spike and supposedly gives it to Angel (Oz says he’s got a gig in LA and that he’d drop it by). Can anyone shed some light on whether Angel got it and lost it, or still has it or what?
He had it for one episode, used it to take a stroll on the beach in daylight (among other things) then destroyed it.
Detailed summary for In The Dark, episode three of season one on Angel. It has the whole story of the ring.
I don’t know. Can the story line have both? Yes, it does obviously have the substance abuse parallels, but I’m finding that the really complex part of this story isn’t about the magic itself, but about Willow and the personality flaws that lead her to make bad desicions about doing spells for personal gain. Her problems have been built up from the beginning of the show – her insecurity, her jealously, her tendancy to take the easy way out. The magic use is just the thing that made the problems come out, and made them more visable to the Scoobies and to the viewers.
Well said and supposed, Miller. Bad Willow as a red herring distracting us from Bad Buffy is a definite possibility, and I’d say Joss has laid the foundation for it too. I can’t wait to find out if you’re right.
As for calling things, rightly or wrongly, I’m usually pretty bad at that as well. The one exception, which I bring up all the time because I’m so proud of it, is when I saw the episode “Hush.” The next day at work I said to the other Buffy-phile, “we met Willow’s new love interest last night.”
It’s a small thing to be proud of, I know. But there’s so little else in my life; let me have this one!
I had heard this too. But watching Doomed, I didn’t see any sign of it. Although it seems like they cut a bit out of the return to high school. I remember them commenting on the pieces of “extra-crispy mayor meat” when it was originally aired, but I don’t think I heard it on the FX rerun. Anyone?
Also, I’m pretty sure that no-one is aware that Amy’s mom inhabits the cheerleading trophy. None of the characters has ever referred to it (except for OZ, who was freaked out by the way it’s eyes follow him!).
Ahhhhh! More stuff they’re cutting from the FX reruns! The pain, the pain…
They never showed the trophy in Doomed. It was part of the shooting script but later cut out of the episode.
Lola, I assume that you read Rayne’s shooting script site before it was taken down- that’s where that was found.