Chief Seattle Review of Buffy S5 E8
Linda
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Episode Title "Shadows"
Through a Glass Darkly
How do we tell what the future holds for us? How do we know what we really
want? If we do know how do we find it? How are we to understand our place
in the world? What we can do and what we can't? How do we relate to
others?
These are all difficult questions because the world is full of shadows and
we can see through them but dimly. This is the theme that is explored here.
"Shadows" is full of examples of people thrashing about in the dark to no
great advantage. First of all we can think of Giles, Willow and the others
anxiously trying to research for information about Glory, information they
cannot find.
Tara: "Maybe she's not in the books."
Willow: "What do you mean?"
Tara: "I mean, what if she's not a demon or sorceress or spirit or whatever
these books cover? What if she's something else altogether?"
Giles: "Thank you, come again. Something new, you mean?"
Tara: "Something old. So old it pre-dates the written word."
Willow: "Giles, the Dagon sphere. You said that was created to repel..."
Giles: "...that which cannot be named. "
Willow: "So I'm thinking maybe she..."
Giles: "Predates language itself?"
This little exchange is then followed by the appearance of Glory in the
Magic
Shop to but certain items she needs for her transmogrification spell. The
interesting thing here is that all the information needed for Giles to
idenmtfiy
here was there is plain site. After all they subsequently do put it
together
when Anya draws their attention to the fact that Giles sold a Khul's amulet
and a Sobekian bloodstone
Anya: "You never sell these things together, ever! Bad news! Don't you know
about the Sobekites?"
Willow: "Oh! I do. It was an ancient Egyptian cult, heavy into dark magic.
"
Tara: "And the Khul's amulet, wasn't that a transmogrification conduit?"
Anya: "Damn straight!"
Giles: "Be that as it may, I still see no reason for concern. I mean,
the-the
Sobekian transmogrification spells were lost thousands of years ago. And
besides, the young woman to whom I sold them would have to have had enormous
power..."
Willow: "Young woman?"
Giles: "Oh, dear lord."
Giles might have been able to work this all out himself but all he saw was
a pretty young woman whom he had no reason to suspect smiling at him. We
knew what Glory looked like. We knew she was up to no good. Giles didn't.
Shadows take many forms.
But this episode is mainly concerned with the way in which three people in
particular try to peer through the shadows and so I would now like to turn
to each of these, beginning somewhat unusually with the antagonist rather
than the protagonist.
Glory
Glory knows what she wants. What she doesn't know is how to get it and that
is why she needs the transmogrification spell:
"The power is yours ... to see what is unseen. To find what is shrouded in
shadow. Already, you know what I seek. I have given you form, now find for
me the key. Seek it out in the holy places. Yes, yes, yes! Let your vision
guide you to its hiding place, and then return to me and tell me where it
lies. "
Although she doesn't say so explicitly, the thing that is shrouded in shadow
is of course the key. Glory knows that it is in Sunnydale. What she
doesn't
know is that it is in the form of Buffy's sister and it is to find it that
she needs the power of Sobek.
But that is not the only way in which Glory is in the dark. She has met
Buffy before in battle and defeated her easily. She knows that she is the
slayer but she clearly does not know the relationship Buffy has with the
key so she does not understand that Buffy is the obstacle in her way to
getting
the key. Moreover she equally clearly does not appreciate how formidable
an obstacle Buffy can be. That is what leads Glory to disregard Buffy.
She tosses her across the Reptile Hose and into a glass case. She could
easily have killed her. Instead she ignored her because she was
concentrating
so much on her snake beast and the way it was going to find the key for her.
That she forgot Buffy was there and let her overhear what she was saying
to the beast was because she did not understand who she was. But if she
had and if she had killed her then the key would have been in her possession
that very night.
As it was because she did not know about Buffy the key continued to be
hidden
in shadow.
Buffy
In her own way Buffy is just as much in the dark as Glory. "Shadows" opens
with Joyce undergoing a CAT scan. Dawn idly wonders why it was called that.
But in truth the real question is what it will find. Joyce has been ill
for sometime but no-one knows what is wrong with her. And even when the
results come back there is no real answer to that question:
Buffy: "Mom, what did they find?"
Joyce: "A shadow. I've got a shadow. Somewhere ... over there ... he showed
it to me, but, um ... they have to do a biopsy to find out exactly what it
is.
Joyce: "Doctor says it's too early to be concerned."
Buffy: "Right. No concern."
Joyce: "Just a shadow."
And even finding out what was wrong with Joyce solves little if anything.
Dr Isaacs: "I know this is very difficult, and, uh, because of the nature
of your mother's illness ... unfortunately, things may progress very
quickly."
Buffy: "Things? What things?"
Dr Isaacs: "Symptoms. There's a fair variety that might present. Loss of
vision or appetite, lack of muscle control, uh, mood swings..."
Buffy: "But what can we do?"
Dr Isaacs: "Well, not much, until we determine if the tumor's operable.
Which
we are working on. "
Buffy: "Is there something that I ... I mean ... can I help?"
Dr Isaacs: "Well, there's some literature you might want to look at. If we
aren't able to go in surgically, there are a number of new treatments that
are very promising. Your mother's prognosis is a lot better today than it
would have been only a year ago. Even if the tumor's not operable, she has
a real chance."
Buffy: "What's a real chance?"
Dr Isaacs: "Nearly one out of three patients with this condition does just
fine."
Buffy has great resources of strength and ingenuity; none of that can help.
In her desperation she just wants something that will help - anything.
But nothing will. Even when she suggests resort to magic she is quickly
shot down:
Giles: "The truth is, uh, the ... mystical and the medical aren't meant to
mix, Buffy. Sorry, um .. .the human mind is very delicate. Too much can go
wrong."
Tara: "Yeah, I've heard stories about people trying healing spells ... if
we did something, it could make things a lot worse, Buffy."
There seems no obvious way at all that she can make a difference, at least
not to her mother. But when she hears about Glory's transmogrification
spell
that provides her at least with something to do.
Xander: "Buffy, this chick creamed you last time."
Buffy: "That's because I wasn't ready for her last time. I am now."
Willow: "But you..."
Buffy: "But what? Will, I can't just sit here. I have to do something.
She leaves."
But all that does is reveal the fallacy in saying "Something must be done.
This is something so I must to it." Glory was real alright, but that
didn't
mean that she was someone she could fight. She had already tried brute
force
and it had failed. She tired brute force again and as Xander feared she
got creamed again. There may be a way to defeat Glory but that way is also
shrouded in shadow and Buffy is no closer to finding the answer than she
was when they met in the abandoned warehouse. Trying to take Glory on
without
knowing what she was doing was pointless and eventually she had to sneak
away while Glory completed her spell.
There was still nothing Buffy could do to help her mother and now it seemed
there was little she could do to frustrate Glory either. What was the way
ahead?
Ultimately, however, in the big snake creature Buffy did find something she
could do. Here was not an uncertain but threatening medical condition.
Nor was it a seemingly invincible creature that could not be named. This
was real. It posed a defined threat. It had discovered Dawn's secret and
was about to reveal it to Glory. Moreover, while it was powerful Buffy
had faced worse. There was no hidden secret here. Because she had been in
the Reptile House with Glory she knew what the snake beast was and why it
took off after seeing Dawn. Willow and the others didn't know. They
assumed
it was frightened of her. But thay was because they did not know ehat Buffy
knew. She knew exactly what the snake meant and she also knew what she had
to do and why she had to do it. She simply had to catch it and kill it.
And that was what she did.
And the startling thing was the way she did it. Her treatment of the
creature
was brutal, unnecessarily so as she pummelled it again and again long after
it had\ceased to be a threat. The thing about trying to find your way
around
in a land full of shadows is the feeling of powerlessness that it induces.
Buffy did not know and could not affect her mother's future. She did not
know how to fight Glory. This is not so much unusual as frightening for
someone used to having all the answers. Putting one solid achievement under
her belt helped. Releasing all the pent up frustration as she did so helped
some more. But in the end the shadows remain - the things she could not
fight. In the end she has to stand by helplessly while Joyce breaks the
news about her illness to Dawn and they must all face the uncertainties of
the future.
Riley
At least both Glory and Buffy knew what they want. Glory wants the key.
Buffy wanted Joyce and Dawn safe. The problem is that neither of them
really
know how to get what they want. Riley's problems are even deeper.
There once was a time when Riley had a clear view of who he was and what
he wanted. He was a soldier, a man of action. He was also a man of duty,
someone who carried out his superiors' orders without question because.
But that had all changed. He lost his army career and with it his sense
of duty. Then he lost his strength and with it much of his ability to
fight.
Now all that is left for Riley is Buffy. His problem is that he does not
know whether she really wants him. In fact he doesn't know what she wants
in a boyfriend at all. Throughout this episode he's faced with different
views on this.
In "the Replacement" and "Out of My Mind" he seemed to have convinced
himself
that what Buffy wanted was a superhero. And indeed in "Fool For Love" what
we saw was his own need to reaffirm his masculinity by acting as if he were
still "Captain America" as Xander put it. But Buffy didn't need him for
that. When she decided to go after Glory, she went alone. She didn't even
bother to tell Riley what she was going to do. Riley of course was
outraged:
Riley: And you let Buffy go after her? Alone?
Giles: Uh, "let" isn't really a factor when she sets her mind to something,
you know that.
Riley: She'll get herself killed. It's crazy.
Xander: Yeah. Crazy. Going off alone, half-cocked, instead of waiting for
much-needed backup ... charging in with a big old hand grenade ... oh, wait.
Riley: This is different.
But for Riley this is probably the final demonstration that whatever Buffy
needs it's not a superhero by her side. There is no attempt to find her.
He simply leaves, saying as he does so -
"If, uh, she needs me..."
It was as weak as that.
Nor did she need his moral support. A number of times in this episode he
offered it to her and she essentially ignored him. In this Buffy too could
not see the truth. She had her own problems to cope with. She was worried
about Joyce and Dawn. She could not see that there was something wrong with
Riley. So, when Riley very gently (and rightly) questions her intention
to use magic she hurts his feelings by accusing him of not helping. When
he says that he is there for her she turns her back on him and leaves him
alone in the corridor. All she can find for him to do is act as babysitter
for Dawn. That is not the help and support Riley wanted to give.
If Riley couldn't help her out in a fight against Glory and if he could not
be a moral support for her then what was left? It was Spike who seems to
have put the idea in his head first. And his version of what the slayer
finds attractive has more than the whiff of self-interest to it:
Spike: "Twice in recent memory, she's had the lover-wiccas do a deinvite
on the house. Keep out specific vamps. Ever ask yourself why she's never
taken my name off the guest list?"
Riley: "Because you're harmless."
Spike: Oh yeah, right. Takes one to know, I suppose. Least I still got the
attitude. What do you got, a piercing glance? Face it, white bread. Buffy's
got a type, and you're not it. She likes us dangerous, rough, occasionally
bumpy in the forehead region. Not that she doesn't like you ... but sorry
Charlie, you're just not dark enough."
And Dawn with her well meaning attempts to cheer Riley up only reinforced
the suspicion growing in his mind.
Dawn: "I'm really glad you're here."
Riley: "Thanks."
Dawn: "Buffy's glad too."
Riley: "Yeah?"
Dawn: "She sure cries a lot less with you than she did with Angel."
Riley: "Angel ... made her cry a lot, huh?"
Dawn: "Everything with him was all ... eee, you know?"
Riley: "All...?"
Dawn: "You know ... "my boyfriend's a vampire" crazy crazy. Every day was
like the end of the world. She doesn't get all worked up like that over
you."
If ever there was a case of "I know what you think I just said but that's
not what I meant", this was it. What Riley heard here was that Buffy's
feelings
for Angel were stronger than her feelings for Riley and the strength of
those
feelings were because of the darkness in him. And here too we see how
things
are covered in shadow. Because Riley does not know what Buffy wants he is
ready to believe Spike and the small voice within him that whispers that
what Buffy real wants is someone who is dark and dangerous, And so we see
him in a rendezvous with Sandy, the vampire from "Family" in which he allows
her to bite him, winces in pain and only then stakes her. To what extent
is he seriously contemplating becoming a vampire here? Or is this more an
experiment to see what vampirism is really like, to try to understand what
Buffy might see in a vampire. I am not sure but I do no one thing. No good
can come of this.
This was a deceptively simple theme. But it worked for two reasons. We,
the audience are used to seeing more of the "big picture" than the
protagonists
so it is sometimes difficult to remember how little they know. It can be
very easy for us, therefore, to judge their actions by reference to what
we know rather than what they do. Take Buffy, for example. That she was
concerned about her mother was obvious. That she felt powerless to help
her in the face of a disease she knew little about and could do less to
affect was trite. But that, in the face of all the uncertainly in her life
she made poor choices because of what she could not see or would not face,
was not only as true to life but inherently more interesting. She was
unable
to understand Riley or his insecurities so she made a bad situation that
much worse. She needed to help Dawn and she wanted to take her mind off
her mother's plight so she did a stupid thing and went off to confront Glory
and the fact that she did so could so easily have left Dawn at her mercy.
Judged objectively her actions were stupid, selfish and self-defeating,
perhaps to a degree even self-destructive. But we cannot judge then
objectively.
Just like Giles and his sale of the artefacts to Glory we cannot judge her
actions with the benefit of hindsight or our greater knowledge of the
circumstances
she faced. We have to see things through her eyes and walk in her
footsteps.
But even more intriguing is Riley. In my reviews of "Out if My Mind" and
"Fool For Love" I admitted finding it hard to drum up any sympathy for
Captain
America. Someone so intent on self-destruction because of their own pride
and stupidity earns little in the way of that. But even more importantly
the events of "Shadows" puts a new and much kinder light on Riley. This
is someone who really does want to be the sort of person Buffy wants and
needs. It's just that he is cannot understand what that is. He is so
confused
that Spike can run rings around him. Even when caught in a compromising
position in Buffy's bedroom he can turn the tables effortlessly by reminding
Riley of how little he knows or understand of her. In this episode we are
reminded that Riley is genuinely lost and engaged in a voyage of discovery,
a voyage in which no-one is of much help and some are a positive hindrance.
Again this should make us more tolerant of his mistakes and more willing
to give him credit for good and honorable intentions. That is always
important.
Plot
In this episode we have three two stories running side by side. The first
concerns Joyce and the uncertainty over her medical condition. The second
is Riley and his continued descent into darkness and the third is Glory's
attempt to find the key. All three are, as we have seen, thematically
linked.
Moreover, all have a common element which forms a connection between the
three. So, it is uncertainly over Joyce's condition that moulds Buffy's
actions in relation to both Glory and Riley. This gives the piece a feeling
of unity, that we are watching one story unfold rather than three separate
ones.
The problem is that, in each storyline and indeed in the episode as a whole
there is just too little going on to keep our attention fully occupied.
At the start the focus is on Joyce. We see her as she undergoes tests to
determine what is wrong with her and as the episode progresses we learn more
and more. First we hear that she has a shadow but no-one knows the
significance
of this. Then we hear that it is a tumor and discover the various options
open for treating it. But it was obvious from the beginning - indeed it
was obvious from the end of "Fool for Love" that there was something
seriously
wrong with Joyce and the precise nature of that something was simply detail.
It was all very predictable, something we had seen many times before. It
always involves a good deal of angst and some family bonding. This is the
soap opera element of the series coming to the fore again. Here the writers
depend for effect not on plot or story but rather on the sympathetic
identification
of the audience with the characters. But for those of us who do not share
this sense of identification the scenes in the hospital did tend to drag
a bit.
But that is not the real problem with this part of the episode. As I have
said this aspect of the episode depends for its effect upon the concern
of the audience for Joyce and upon it understanding and sharing the
anxieties
of Buffy. But in this context there is something that I continue to find
jarring - the way the writers treat Dawn as if she really were Buffy's
sister
and Joyce's daughter. A moment like this, when Buffy's mother may even be
dying, is perhaps the ultimate example of what a family bond means. Riley
and even Willow and Xander are excluded from it. So, is there no
questioning
(even privately) of Dawn's right to be with Joyce at such a sensitive time?
Is Buffy so devoid of resentment about a stranger intruding into her grief
at this most private moment? This is what continues to ring wholly false
for me. Trying to pretend that Dawn is what she cannot be is absurd.
The second element of the plot concerns Riley and shares some of the same
weakness as the first - too little actually happens. For the most part we
see Captain America mope around after Buffy feeling sorry for himself. It
is hard to avoid a feeling of been there done that, especially in the scenes
where he offers Buffy his support and is rejected. But what makes this
aspect
of the episode work in dramatic terms is the scene between Riley and Sandy.
It comes as a complete shock to see quite how far the former has fallen.
It is certainly not something I had anticipated. But, when we go back and
look at what has happened before it makes perfect sense. We had already
seen Riley in the demon dive, being approached by Sandy. And, as I have
already said his conversations with both Spike and Dawn have put the idea
into his head that Buffy likes her men with something of the dark about
them.
In light of this, what we see Riley do is merely the next logical step.
And in context it has just the right feel of seediness, amounting almost
to depravity to convey the idea that here is someone who is desperate,
someone
whose life is heading completely out of control but above all someone who
no longer has any respect for himself.
The final element of the story is Glory's adventures with the snake beast.
The good thing about this storyline was the way in which Glory's intentions
remained veiled at the beginning. There is much talk about a gift and the
need for it to work. We infer from this and Glory's impatience that this
has something to do with the key. But we do not find out what until the
snake beast actually appears. This at least has the benefit of keeping our
attention. The fact that the snake beast is raised by means of yet another
long lost spell that suddenly comes to light at just the right moment is
something that we can overlook. It's a fantasy series after all. But from
then on it is downhill. First the cgi effects were awful - and not in the
sense that they left us full of awe. A creature that has the audience
rolling
its eyes in disbelief is not going to carry much conviction. More
importantly
though what happened next was entirely predictable. Snake beast sees dawn,
tries to get back to Glory., Buffy intercepts it, big battle, yada yada
yada.
There is no inventiveness, no twist, nothing out of the ordinary. This
is plotting by numbers.
Over and above the specific problems with this storyline we see highlighted
here some serious weaknesses of the arc thus far. First and foremost of
these is Glory herself. To put it bluntly she is more of a caricature than
a character. The obsession with the shoes, the absurd minions with their
convoluted hyperbole, the valleygirl speak. These are tricks intended to
divert and entertain us. They do not a three dimensional individual make.
Still less do we have a villain of any plausibility. This is obviously
intended to be the most powerful opponent Buffy has ever faced. But where
is the menace? When she threatens Dreg where is the conviction? What I
am getting is spoiled and wilful.
Secondly there is the pacing. This is the eighth episode in the season.
Almost everything that we know about the arc was revealed in "No Place Like
Home". Since then we have seen Glory both here and in "Family" but the arc
hasn't been advanced at all. Here for example Glory tried to find the key
and failed. Buffy tried to match up her against and was creamed again. Both
were back to square one. It is a worrying sign when you get an episode that
is in large part given over to the arc and nothing happens in it to advance
the arc at all.
Overview
B- (8/10): Thematically this was an episode that worked very well. It took
a simple idea that is inherent in almost all drama - the fact that the
protagonists
are so often in the dark - and made something interesting out of it. I
especially
liked the way in which the idea of shadows was used to make us think about
some of the characters in this episode and what they knew and did not know.
Both Buffy and Riley behaved in thoughtless and irresponsible ways in this
episode. But it was because we understood the that they did so because they
were so uncertain about what they could or should do they we ultimately
sympathized
with them rather than condemned them. Ironically however, for an episode
that was thematically all about life's uncertainties, the plot of this
episode
was predictability itself. I have never been a fan of the soap opera
elements
of BUFFY but even making allowances for that the course of Joyce's illness
was entirely foreseeable. So too was the nature and outcome of the
confrontations
between slayer and Glory. Indeed the one saving grace of the plotting in
this episode was the one moment of genuine unpredictability - seeing Mr.
Square Jaw in the embrace of a vampire. If only the rest of the episode
had embraced such unconventional ideas.