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avreliaI wish I knew how to write pages and pages the next evening after an episode aired. It took me lots of time to write all this nonsense until I decided to stop, post it, and move on.
Cut to protect the innocent.
It is quite interesting that as much as I love Never Leave Me, I have almost nothing to say about it. Nothing that wasn't said already. Maybe next time, I got more intersted in the next two episodes.
Maybe I thought too much about it? All the long, long time when there were no new episodes – my first ever experience with the broadcasting schedule in North America, and the wait was unbearable.
But then there was Bring On the Night, which was rather anticlimactic, and the prolonged torture didn’t feel like fun (I am talking both of Spike and the viewers.) Now, watching the episodes in the short succession works much better.
First, thematically, they can be grouped in two two-parters: Sleeper with Never leave ME, which deal with Spike, and BOTN with Showtime, which welcome many new characters into the series and kicks off the main arc.
Second, in terms of internal time (assuming in their Universe other days, besides Tuesday, exist) we have another grouping:
CWDP+Sleeper+Never Leave Me+BOTN, which is one continuous stretch and all the events happen in approximately seven days consecutively. Time is always goes wonky in that Universe, so I prefer to ignore especially huge discrepancies for the sake of my sanity.
The important thing, however, is to remember that Buffy doesn’t sleep from CWDP – for a week or so.
Showtime happens couple of weeks after that – not less than a week, but not too far from BOTN.
Once I established the internal timeline, it has become easier to understand characters’ emotional state.
There is a growing tension, sense of urgency and exhaustion – which ultimately results in Buffy being defeated and beaten by the Ubervamp.
Buffy’s battles are always more metaphorical, then literal, and their outcome always depends on Buffy’s state of mind. Of course, in literal fights state of mind has no less importance, but in this case it is much more visible – Turok-Han, who is a terrifying and almost invincible foe when we first meet him, is easily killed later on.
Everyone is telling Buffy to get some sleep – and everyone is bloody right – she should have gotten some sleep – after a sleepless week, but she is pushing for action, and it just didn’t work. Her speech at the end is great though –pushing for action instead of waiting for the evil to attack is good, but what action we are talking about? And how much of the pushing?
(Sidenote #1: why can’t I write it when I am not tired and stupid?)
I still cannot quite solve to my satisfaction Wood’s behaviour in BOTN - was he controlled by the First? Was he just being a jerk? I like him as the principal, and generally find him not bad a character throughout the season, but this moment, it seems he is just mysterious for no good reason.
Joyce’s appearances – as opposed to one in CWDP – I tend to consider real Joyce appearances, or Buffy’s projections/dreams, to be exact, since actual Joyce is long dead.
Everything Dream!Joyce says makes perfect sense – and not twisted FE sense.
In fact, it may be even providing some clues – if Buffy only could listen. Buffy is looking for a thing to kill – only she cannot: neither FE, nor Turok–Han. She is tired of expecting the next apocalypse – she did it for all the autumn, she did it all her life, now she wants to charge in, and it basically right idea, but it doesn't work. She really needs some sleep first.
Sun always goes up, and sun always goes down – which is quite true, and means that Buffy has to refocus her energy.
Evil is here already – well, duh! Remember, it is the First Evil we are talking about, the foe that cannot be killed, and the one which is working from the inside: playing on the weakness, insecurities, fears, it is the evil in people themselves.
It cannot be killed, but it can be fought, and it can be driven away quite efficiently, as we learn later.
Sidenote # 2 How FE is building its army? It is cloning Ubervamps? What are they being made of? Did the FE contract Saruman to do it?
The methods of research are stupid, and our heroes suddenly look incredibly pathetic.
Their fears have confirmed.
Everyone here either fails, or just feels useless. Nothing is getting done.
Then of course, things get worse. Enter potentials with new and improved Giles.
I have to admit that even though my attitude to the Potentials was changing over the time, one moment has never bothered me – their accents. I've heard worse. Actually, I have worse myself. Except that it isn't fake.
So they are annoying. They demand attention and protection, but are useless; they take time and cramp the space even more, making it unbearably claustrophobic.
Well, that’s the point.
Vampires drink blood, kill humans and are generally a nuisance, but I haven’t seen anyone complaining about them (I mean in fandom.)
Potentials are annoying – that is their raison d’etre in the series – to push Buffy into a new role, onto a new step.
Besides, I just like them.
So we get Annabelle, who is very orderly, and uppity, and right – and she is the first to freak and run and die.
We get Molly, whom I don’t quite get, and we get Kennedy, who immediate tries to establish her special status.
Giles. You know, if I didn’t read spoilers at the time, I wouldn’t know he didn’t touch anything. One cannot really be surprised that he didn’t touch anyone – but still he is noticeably different. Very distant and cold, and aloof.
But I suppose the shock of destruction of the large part of his world – the place where he spent most of his life, the death of people he knew all his life, even if he didn’t particularly like them may have done that. He is now everything that’s left of the Council, and even though he fought it, he probably now feels a certain duty to upheld towards it, too. The Council may not be very good, but he doesn’t know any other structure to keep this sorry world going.
Wow. I did write a lot on BOTN. And I even didn’t write anything about half of the characters.
Onto Showtime.
Showtime finishes the mini-arch started NLM and BOTN – with the Ubervamp, and with the appearance of the Potentials and the acceptance of Buffy as their leader/ Acceptance by both potentials and Buffy herself.
On the whole I liked it more this time than before, but I don’t remember much what I thought of it the first time around.
World is a theatre…
Life is a show we don't get to rehearse…
Sometimes we forget that we are watching a show, and with the episode like Showtime it helps a lot to remember it, because everyone there is putting on the show.
I've been making a show of training lately…
The FE is making a show for the potentials and Buffy.
The FE is making a show for Spike.
Scoobies are making the show for the potentials
Buffy is making the show for the potentials
Kennedy is asking for a show from Willow.
Anya is making herself a show.
Giles is trying to withdraw from the spectacle.
Andrew sees everything as a show.
It's not bad, really. Buffy fighting the Ubervamp seen as regular fight is tedious, seen as the show for the potentials' benefit is entertaining and gives me a new appreciation for Buffy. Good "show, not tell" technique. OF course, later she would retreat to "tell", and that would be much less efficient.
Fight with Turok Han – is it just me, or he really mimicked Trinity from Matrix with that “squatting in the air” move?
The mourned lack of proper weapons in this scene is also intentional. She wants to show that everything can be a weapon, not just kill the UV.
The telepathy didn't bother me this time around. We know Willow can do it, but this time is Buffy who initiated using Willow’s abilities as a device of transformation from thought to communication. It is actually very interesting moment – a rare moment of the communication between the Scoobies to the exclusion of everyone else from it. They can communicate effectively when they put a thought and effort into it. It’s just they prefer not to.
As opposed to the previous season, when Willow tried to take charge and fix things to her liking, she is avoiding standing forward and prefers to hide – again, still – and going with the flow. She is terrified of herself and tries to retreat into her early self, without dealing with any of the real problems she had.
The only thing that was bothering me forever is Eve. Everything I said about potentials above doesn’t apply to her, but then she is not a potential, she is the mocking of FE, so it is not a stretch.
How nobody noticed incorporeality? First, they are not “stranger-touching” lot (unless they are fighting said strangers). Big personal space is a cultural norm. Second, when there are so many new people, attention gets diffused and in all the general confusion it is plausible not to notice that one of the new girls doesn’t carry or lift anything.
Wank wank wank
Fake Eve worked the potentials quite nicely. They were a scared lot to begin with – scared both because of too real danger to their lives, and more so because they don’t know anything beside that their life is in danger. Neither who nor what wants to kill them, nor why, or who they are, what they are capable of and what does it mean, and they were brought here, in Sunnydale. Questions are all too many, without any reliable answer to offer on any of those questions. Some of them have more of knowledge about Slayers (Kennedy), some none at all (Rona), but all of them have very blurry picture of the reality – like the one Vi was shown by her watcher. No wonder they are ready to break at the slightest push.
I kind of felt for Kennedy, specifically here. She was brought up with the strong sense of her “specialness” – by several reasons, but her being a potential Slayer one of the strongest. She was recognized as possible Slayer and trained long ago – way before Buffy knew something about existence of vampires outside of horror movies. She was too young to be called before Buffy – or instead of her, but probably not too young to called in Kendra’s place or Faith’s. Only they were and she wasn’t. Bummer. Of course maybe she doesn’t know about them – it seemed only Vi had some vague notion of existence of another Slayer. Still – all life in waiting and preparation for something that may never come, and if it does come, it is not much fun either. I can allow for her bitterness and her “I’m the Coolest ever!”, nonchalant attitude. Hers is a rather sad life, and the fact that her house has wings isn’t helping. She rushes to fight, to do something, to challenge Buffy’s authority, to establish herself as someone, but she is still one of the bunch of scared girls, no better than Rona, Vi, or Chloe.
Anya seems to reinvent herself as a housekeeper for the Summers Household. She is still looking for herself and trying to be of help in the apocalypse – all in the wrong places – namely, in the demon community. Being desired was an important part of her self-image, both as woman and vengeance demon, hence she keeps playing this part – only to everyone’s dismay now.
Beljoxa Eye was appropriately vague, and didn’t tell anything useful, allowing them – and us – to draw conclusions themselves, possibly wrong conclusions. Have we learned anything from that interview? That FE cannot be killed –true, cannot be fought – nobody tried, actually, that FE didn’t plan ahead, but seized the opportunity when could, and probably that Scoobies had something to do with it, or Buffy alone, or Faith – please keep in mind that we only hear Giles’ interpretation of the last subject, and what that Eye in fact, means, is unclear.
So, was it completely useless? Sometimes the negative result is the also useful result, and we’ve established that (a) by regular means (AKA poking it with sharp objects) FE can’t be fought, and (b) that it was not someone else’s responsibility to fight it.
Have I forgotten something? Well, there was also Spike there – as well as the absence of Spike.
Spike makes his conscious choice about his role – to hope, to not despair, to fight for good. He started making this choice before, but now, with the soul he can see clear that soul is no magic solution that could bring Buffy closer, that he can be as bad with soul as without, and maybe nothing he does really matters. His unlife was much easier before. Torture – we know that physical torture wouldn’t mean anything for him – he told as much himself in NLM – so all those beating are just to keep Turok-Han occupied, but the words, the words could do the real damage, and in this kind of torture FE is quite skilled.
His attempt to escape – was it Spike’s own hallucination – or FE has put a show for him? If the former, did he imagine Buffy as First, Buffy as Buffy (not-so-nice-Buffy), or did FE inserted itself into his delusions?
He clings to hope, nevertheless, and repeat as prayer “She will come for me.”
And of course she does.
Cut to protect the innocent.
It is quite interesting that as much as I love Never Leave Me, I have almost nothing to say about it. Nothing that wasn't said already. Maybe next time, I got more intersted in the next two episodes.
Maybe I thought too much about it? All the long, long time when there were no new episodes – my first ever experience with the broadcasting schedule in North America, and the wait was unbearable.
But then there was Bring On the Night, which was rather anticlimactic, and the prolonged torture didn’t feel like fun (I am talking both of Spike and the viewers.) Now, watching the episodes in the short succession works much better.
First, thematically, they can be grouped in two two-parters: Sleeper with Never leave ME, which deal with Spike, and BOTN with Showtime, which welcome many new characters into the series and kicks off the main arc.
Second, in terms of internal time (assuming in their Universe other days, besides Tuesday, exist) we have another grouping:
CWDP+Sleeper+Never Leave Me+BOTN, which is one continuous stretch and all the events happen in approximately seven days consecutively. Time is always goes wonky in that Universe, so I prefer to ignore especially huge discrepancies for the sake of my sanity.
The important thing, however, is to remember that Buffy doesn’t sleep from CWDP – for a week or so.
Showtime happens couple of weeks after that – not less than a week, but not too far from BOTN.
Once I established the internal timeline, it has become easier to understand characters’ emotional state.
There is a growing tension, sense of urgency and exhaustion – which ultimately results in Buffy being defeated and beaten by the Ubervamp.
Buffy’s battles are always more metaphorical, then literal, and their outcome always depends on Buffy’s state of mind. Of course, in literal fights state of mind has no less importance, but in this case it is much more visible – Turok-Han, who is a terrifying and almost invincible foe when we first meet him, is easily killed later on.
Everyone is telling Buffy to get some sleep – and everyone is bloody right – she should have gotten some sleep – after a sleepless week, but she is pushing for action, and it just didn’t work. Her speech at the end is great though –pushing for action instead of waiting for the evil to attack is good, but what action we are talking about? And how much of the pushing?
(Sidenote #1: why can’t I write it when I am not tired and stupid?)
I still cannot quite solve to my satisfaction Wood’s behaviour in BOTN - was he controlled by the First? Was he just being a jerk? I like him as the principal, and generally find him not bad a character throughout the season, but this moment, it seems he is just mysterious for no good reason.
Joyce’s appearances – as opposed to one in CWDP – I tend to consider real Joyce appearances, or Buffy’s projections/dreams, to be exact, since actual Joyce is long dead.
Everything Dream!Joyce says makes perfect sense – and not twisted FE sense.
In fact, it may be even providing some clues – if Buffy only could listen. Buffy is looking for a thing to kill – only she cannot: neither FE, nor Turok–Han. She is tired of expecting the next apocalypse – she did it for all the autumn, she did it all her life, now she wants to charge in, and it basically right idea, but it doesn't work. She really needs some sleep first.
Sun always goes up, and sun always goes down – which is quite true, and means that Buffy has to refocus her energy.
Evil is here already – well, duh! Remember, it is the First Evil we are talking about, the foe that cannot be killed, and the one which is working from the inside: playing on the weakness, insecurities, fears, it is the evil in people themselves.
It cannot be killed, but it can be fought, and it can be driven away quite efficiently, as we learn later.
Sidenote # 2 How FE is building its army? It is cloning Ubervamps? What are they being made of? Did the FE contract Saruman to do it?
The methods of research are stupid, and our heroes suddenly look incredibly pathetic.
Their fears have confirmed.
Everyone here either fails, or just feels useless. Nothing is getting done.
Then of course, things get worse. Enter potentials with new and improved Giles.
I have to admit that even though my attitude to the Potentials was changing over the time, one moment has never bothered me – their accents. I've heard worse. Actually, I have worse myself. Except that it isn't fake.
So they are annoying. They demand attention and protection, but are useless; they take time and cramp the space even more, making it unbearably claustrophobic.
Well, that’s the point.
Vampires drink blood, kill humans and are generally a nuisance, but I haven’t seen anyone complaining about them (I mean in fandom.)
Potentials are annoying – that is their raison d’etre in the series – to push Buffy into a new role, onto a new step.
Besides, I just like them.
So we get Annabelle, who is very orderly, and uppity, and right – and she is the first to freak and run and die.
We get Molly, whom I don’t quite get, and we get Kennedy, who immediate tries to establish her special status.
Giles. You know, if I didn’t read spoilers at the time, I wouldn’t know he didn’t touch anything. One cannot really be surprised that he didn’t touch anyone – but still he is noticeably different. Very distant and cold, and aloof.
But I suppose the shock of destruction of the large part of his world – the place where he spent most of his life, the death of people he knew all his life, even if he didn’t particularly like them may have done that. He is now everything that’s left of the Council, and even though he fought it, he probably now feels a certain duty to upheld towards it, too. The Council may not be very good, but he doesn’t know any other structure to keep this sorry world going.
Wow. I did write a lot on BOTN. And I even didn’t write anything about half of the characters.
Onto Showtime.
Showtime finishes the mini-arch started NLM and BOTN – with the Ubervamp, and with the appearance of the Potentials and the acceptance of Buffy as their leader/ Acceptance by both potentials and Buffy herself.
On the whole I liked it more this time than before, but I don’t remember much what I thought of it the first time around.
World is a theatre…
Life is a show we don't get to rehearse…
Sometimes we forget that we are watching a show, and with the episode like Showtime it helps a lot to remember it, because everyone there is putting on the show.
I've been making a show of training lately…
The FE is making a show for the potentials and Buffy.
The FE is making a show for Spike.
Scoobies are making the show for the potentials
Buffy is making the show for the potentials
Kennedy is asking for a show from Willow.
Anya is making herself a show.
Giles is trying to withdraw from the spectacle.
Andrew sees everything as a show.
It's not bad, really. Buffy fighting the Ubervamp seen as regular fight is tedious, seen as the show for the potentials' benefit is entertaining and gives me a new appreciation for Buffy. Good "show, not tell" technique. OF course, later she would retreat to "tell", and that would be much less efficient.
Fight with Turok Han – is it just me, or he really mimicked Trinity from Matrix with that “squatting in the air” move?
The mourned lack of proper weapons in this scene is also intentional. She wants to show that everything can be a weapon, not just kill the UV.
The telepathy didn't bother me this time around. We know Willow can do it, but this time is Buffy who initiated using Willow’s abilities as a device of transformation from thought to communication. It is actually very interesting moment – a rare moment of the communication between the Scoobies to the exclusion of everyone else from it. They can communicate effectively when they put a thought and effort into it. It’s just they prefer not to.
As opposed to the previous season, when Willow tried to take charge and fix things to her liking, she is avoiding standing forward and prefers to hide – again, still – and going with the flow. She is terrified of herself and tries to retreat into her early self, without dealing with any of the real problems she had.
The only thing that was bothering me forever is Eve. Everything I said about potentials above doesn’t apply to her, but then she is not a potential, she is the mocking of FE, so it is not a stretch.
How nobody noticed incorporeality? First, they are not “stranger-touching” lot (unless they are fighting said strangers). Big personal space is a cultural norm. Second, when there are so many new people, attention gets diffused and in all the general confusion it is plausible not to notice that one of the new girls doesn’t carry or lift anything.
Wank wank wank
Fake Eve worked the potentials quite nicely. They were a scared lot to begin with – scared both because of too real danger to their lives, and more so because they don’t know anything beside that their life is in danger. Neither who nor what wants to kill them, nor why, or who they are, what they are capable of and what does it mean, and they were brought here, in Sunnydale. Questions are all too many, without any reliable answer to offer on any of those questions. Some of them have more of knowledge about Slayers (Kennedy), some none at all (Rona), but all of them have very blurry picture of the reality – like the one Vi was shown by her watcher. No wonder they are ready to break at the slightest push.
I kind of felt for Kennedy, specifically here. She was brought up with the strong sense of her “specialness” – by several reasons, but her being a potential Slayer one of the strongest. She was recognized as possible Slayer and trained long ago – way before Buffy knew something about existence of vampires outside of horror movies. She was too young to be called before Buffy – or instead of her, but probably not too young to called in Kendra’s place or Faith’s. Only they were and she wasn’t. Bummer. Of course maybe she doesn’t know about them – it seemed only Vi had some vague notion of existence of another Slayer. Still – all life in waiting and preparation for something that may never come, and if it does come, it is not much fun either. I can allow for her bitterness and her “I’m the Coolest ever!”, nonchalant attitude. Hers is a rather sad life, and the fact that her house has wings isn’t helping. She rushes to fight, to do something, to challenge Buffy’s authority, to establish herself as someone, but she is still one of the bunch of scared girls, no better than Rona, Vi, or Chloe.
Anya seems to reinvent herself as a housekeeper for the Summers Household. She is still looking for herself and trying to be of help in the apocalypse – all in the wrong places – namely, in the demon community. Being desired was an important part of her self-image, both as woman and vengeance demon, hence she keeps playing this part – only to everyone’s dismay now.
Beljoxa Eye was appropriately vague, and didn’t tell anything useful, allowing them – and us – to draw conclusions themselves, possibly wrong conclusions. Have we learned anything from that interview? That FE cannot be killed –true, cannot be fought – nobody tried, actually, that FE didn’t plan ahead, but seized the opportunity when could, and probably that Scoobies had something to do with it, or Buffy alone, or Faith – please keep in mind that we only hear Giles’ interpretation of the last subject, and what that Eye in fact, means, is unclear.
So, was it completely useless? Sometimes the negative result is the also useful result, and we’ve established that (a) by regular means (AKA poking it with sharp objects) FE can’t be fought, and (b) that it was not someone else’s responsibility to fight it.
Have I forgotten something? Well, there was also Spike there – as well as the absence of Spike.
Spike makes his conscious choice about his role – to hope, to not despair, to fight for good. He started making this choice before, but now, with the soul he can see clear that soul is no magic solution that could bring Buffy closer, that he can be as bad with soul as without, and maybe nothing he does really matters. His unlife was much easier before. Torture – we know that physical torture wouldn’t mean anything for him – he told as much himself in NLM – so all those beating are just to keep Turok-Han occupied, but the words, the words could do the real damage, and in this kind of torture FE is quite skilled.
His attempt to escape – was it Spike’s own hallucination – or FE has put a show for him? If the former, did he imagine Buffy as First, Buffy as Buffy (not-so-nice-Buffy), or did FE inserted itself into his delusions?
He clings to hope, nevertheless, and repeat as prayer “She will come for me.”
And of course she does.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-05 03:31 pm (UTC)On the subject of the timeline, I tried to put together a Buffy/Angel timeline (http://www.livejournal.com/users/spacedoutlooney/91272.html) and tried to include all the information we have available. If you're interested, I'd love if you would take a look and leave a comment if you see something that I've missed.
I'm not sure if you've seen my theory about Beljoxa's Eye (http://www.livejournal.com/users/spacedoutlooney/703.html), but I'll pimp it anyway, just in case.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-05 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-06 02:47 am (UTC)Giles in BOTN, I think the single thing I most regret in S7 is them showing the Bringer about to cut off his head at the end of Sleeper and setting up that is he/isn’t he the First subplot. First time around I spent the whole episode just looking at whether he was touching things or not. But like you say, when you look at it fresh ASH gives such a pitch perfect portrayal of someone who’s lost hope. He’s not just not touching things, it’s as if he can’t bear to.
I like the Potentials too. It seemed half of fandom was complaining that they took too much time away from the main characters and the other half was distraught that the main characters didn’t interact enough with people from outside their own group and the political implications of that. I don’t think they had any more screen time than the other high school students in S1-3. And is it only citizens of Sunnydale who can represent ‘the wider community?’ That seems a little parochial.
And I love spacedoutlooney’s explanation of why the First didn’t want Buffy killed. You could also postulate that if it had gotten hold of the Scythe (also a link to the Slayer essence) it wouldn’t need her any more and that’s why it started telling Caleb to kill her.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-06 03:55 pm (UTC)Hee. It kind of linked itself. I was watching the episode, and the songs from OMWF in my mind superimposed themselves onto it. Just clicked.
when you look at it fresh ASH gives such a pitch perfect portrayal of someone who’s lost hope. He’s not just not touching things, it’s as if he can’t bear to.
Yeah, there was definitely some silly paly wiht fans over non-touching, which distracts from Giles. But his behavior can be perfectly explained without this ruse.
And is it only citizens of Sunnydale who can represent ‘the wider community?’ That seems a little parochial
It is like world is coming into Summers House... You know I think this season was kind of introverted, not many big explosions, but more of looking into onself. I need to think about it some more. So cool!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-06 11:20 am (UTC)The important thing, however, is to remember that Buffy doesn’t sleep from CWDP – for a week or so.
Thank you! It's easy to let this slip by, which I admit I definitely did the first time.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-07 09:36 am (UTC)Thanks, I was afraid it was contrived a little, but watching Buffy-UV fight AS SHOW was so much more fun.