Buffy 4.09 Something Blue (SPOILERS) - old yet updated reviews from now on
P@rick
***SPOILERS Buffy 4.09 Something Blue***
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Buffy already knew it. And now Willow knows too: beer bad! Even the
Light version.
I've seen discussions in other NG's where Willow haters (yes, they do
exist, just like vampires and demons) used the events in this ep for
ammo. From what I read, it seemed Willow behaved pretty bad and unfair.
Luckily there were the Courageous and Indefatigable Willow Defenders who
pointed out that Willow messed up but did not do that with evil intent
and that she was emotianally unstable so she was still inherently Good.
Not knowing the facts, I decided to go with the latter point of view
because that sounded more like the Willow I know. But they had me
worried.
Now I've seen SB and I can form my own opinion. It's obvious that Willow
has great problems dealing with Oz's departure. She frequently visits
his
dorm room and seeks comfort in his clothes, soaking up his smell. And
then
one day his room is empty all of the sudden. The last shreds of Oz are
taken from her life. Furthermore it seems that Oz informed Devon about
his moving plans, but couldn't or wouldn't give Willow a call. That's
just what she needed to heal her wounds. Not!
Now the stage is set, let's skip to the spell casting part. Quite
clearly, that was not a smart thing to do. She already regretted it
later on, when
she was thinking more clearly. Although she mostly seemed to regret that
the spell didn't work. It's clear that the combination of a heart-broken
Willow and casting spells can be a disastrous one. That combination
almost
proved fatal for Oz and Veruca (or Arouka, as NET5 would put it) in WaH.
And now it put Willow's friends in danger. It's time Willow learns that
she shouldn't mess around with her powers. At least now it is
established that she *is* powerful. Otherwise she wouldn't get an open
invitation from D'Hoffryn. He told Willow her magic is strong. And we
saw that she's got what it takes to de-rat Amy, she just hasn't got
access to those powers yet.
It's clear that Willow had no evil intentions when casting the spell.
With
the Weruka spell she did, but not with this one. She didn't consider the
consequences of the spell, which she should have. That's a big mistake,
especially for a powerful wicca like her. She only wanted the spell to
work
on her. When nothing happened, she presumed the spell had failed. She
only
learned of the consequences when D'Hoffryn showed them to her. And she
clearly wasn't very pleased with them. Her first reaction was to help
her
friends and undo the spell. And later she was guilt-ridden, although she
was
taking it a tad lightly for my taste. Not how S1/2/3 Willow would react.
But leave it up to Willow to feel very guilty about her misdeeds and let
everyone know about it.
All things considered, seems the Willow bashers were only shooting
blanks.
Except, but they didn't mention this, her behaviour towards Xander. I
mean, that guy deserves Kudos. Not for his clothing, but for trying to
help
and comfort Willow, and even feeling guilty when 'Willow was really
upset. I shouldn't have let her go away mad'. And this after Willow
treated him
with 'Let's-let's look at your bio. Insect Lady, Mummy Girl, Anya..
You're a demon magnet.' and ' "Oh, poor me.. I live in a basement."
Yeah, that's
dire'. Big shame on you Willow Rosenberg! You shouldn't be treating a
good
friend like Xander like that. He doesn't deserve that (see, I can be
harsh
to Willow if need be). She wasn't very friendly to Giles either (also in
Pangs), and asking Buffy to choose comforting her over her Slayer
duties, well...
I get the feeling the Scoobies aren't as supportive to Willow as they
could be. Sure, everyone feels sorry for her. And everyone tells her the
bad feeling will go away in time. But it seems they are mostly trying to
rationalize away the pain, telling her it will pass in time not really
sharing it with her. At least, I haven't seen them do that. Like Willow
said: 'Oh, you care. Yeah. Everybody cares. Nobody wants to be
inconvenienced. You all want me to take the time and go through the
pain, as long as you don't have to hear about it anymore <...> Cause I'm
doing the best I can and it doesn't seem to be enough for you guys.'That
seems to have some truth to it. But it's not very clear from what we've
seen (or not seen).
On the other hand, there's only so much that her friends can do to help
Willow get through this period of pain. They can be supportive, try to
cheer her up or just listen to her or lend a shoulder to cry on. Again,
we didn't quite see how they helped her come to terms with her sorrow.
We did hear Xander say "Willow and her griefy-poor-me mood swings - so,
so tired of it", which sounds a bit on the impatient side. But they were
blind to Willow's true pain. She put on a happy face towards her
friends, and they fell for that and thought she was coping relatively
well. Only Spike and D'Hoffryn noticed her intense pain:
"What, are you people blind? She's hangin' on by a thread. Any ninny can
see that."
"Your magic is strong, but your pain - it's like a scream that pierces
dimensional walls. We heard your call"
It's hard to pass judgement on this. Have Willow's friends everything in
their power to support her in this hard times, or have they been wishing
she'd get over it and get on with her life. What seems clear to me is
that they underestimated the pain Willow was still feeling and the
emotional wreck she was. And Willow didn't help them by pretending that
she was okay and being unreasonable to her friends in a number of
occasions.
Well, that concludes my rather lengthy treatise on the Willow part of
this ep. The other parts are covered in the other reviews I guess. Some
things though:
Buffy-Spike.... I agree with Xander: can I be blind too?
Buffy is gradually falling for Riley's charms. Although I think it's
deadly when she calls him "nice". He lacks a dark side and doesn't make
Buffy feel miserable. And she fears that because of that, she could
never really love him. But Buffy's view is majorly skewed of course. I
mean, how much experience does she really have? Angel was her first and
only serious boyfriend. She still has a lot of ground to cover on the
subject of relations. Like your relation isn't perfect if your boyfriend
doesn't turn evil after a night of passion. Although Riley is, I'm
afraid, the other end of the spectrum.
Giles mentioned why the Scoobies don't kill Spike right away: because
he's harmless. Oh *puhlease*. Try telling that to all his victims. Spike
would kill each and every Scooby in a heartbeat. Lord knows he tried in
the past. And while Spike can't harm them physically at the moment, I'm
sure he can think of some other ways to get the Scoobies in trouble.
So everyone was under the influence of Willow's spells. And that was way
funny and all. Even Riley was funny when Buffy told him she was going to
be married. Oh wait, that would be the scene that was funny. But one
moment was especially worth noticing. Buffy wanted Giles to give her
away. Giles is Buffy's father figure. And they've grown close again ever
since he betrayed her in Helpless.
Riley is a lesbian??.......
Bye, Patrick
--
Keeper of the Willowism, "And I'm eating this banana. Lunchtime be
damned!"
Protector of Willow and Oz waking up together
Keeper of the Wily Willow Charms
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