Chief Seattle Review of Buffy S5 E1
Linda
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Episode Title "Buffy vs. Dracula"
First a small introduction.
1. For those who do not watch Angel or frequent the Angel ng, I have been
writing reviews of that series for about 18 months. I am now redeeming a
promise that I would begin to do some Buffy reviews as well.
2. I have tried to keep this one in bounds. I set myself a limit of 3,000
words. I didn't quite keep that limit but I came close than with some of
my Angel reviews.
3. This obviously contains spoilers for Buffy vs Dracula but also a general
reference to how the theme of that episode was treated in succeeding Buffy
episodes. It shouldn't do any harm but if you are severely spoiler allergic
- beware.
A Power Rooted in Darkness
In the season 4 finale, "Restless", the climax is a confrontation between
Buffy and the primal slayer for whom Tara speaks:
Tara: "I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death,
the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone."
Buffy: "The Slayer."
Tara: "The first."
Buffy: "I am not alone."
Tara: "The Slayer does not walk in this world."
And later the primal slayer says:
"No ... friends! Just the kill. We ... are ... alone!"
The change from first to third person singular and then to first person
plural
seems very deliberate. The first slayer is not only describing herself.
She is identifying Buffy with herself. In effect she is saying to her
successor
that they are the same and that what makes them the same is the obsession
with the kill. For them death and destruction is the very core of their
being. And it is this that makes the teaser for the first episode of season
5 so intriguing. She is alone in bed with Reilly. He is sleeping
peacefully
but she isn't. She is not only wide awake but seems tense, almost
uncomfortable.
So she sneaks out of her bed in the middle of the night and hunts for and
finds a vampire and after a frenetic battle kills him. Then visible more
relaxed and comfortable she return to bed, the source of her frustration
gone and snuggles up to Reilly.
Throughout seasons 1 and 2 the constant theme was Buffy's longing to be
normal
and especially to have a normal relationship. Here in this moment we see
that things are not after all quite so simple. Buffy was just where she
said she wanted to be but it wasn't enough. She wanted, she needed more.
She needed to kill. And in this we see a reflection of what the first
slayer
was telling her. She does live in the action of death, the blood cry. And
she does so alone. She quite deliberately left Reilly behind and went on
the hunt on her own. And for this theme the symbolism of the next scene
is very interesting. It starts with a bright, sunlit day and the Scoobies
having a picnic beside the sea. Nothing could be more normal. Except even
her Buffy's competitiveness, her need to prove her strength still shows
itself
as she knocks Reilly over and as he says slays the football. But this scene
of normalcy is brought to an abrupt end by a darkening sky and a
thunderstorm,
heralding the arrival of Dracula. For it is through Dracula and the way
his arrival affects Buffy that the writers try to bring out the idea of
the darkness within her.
Their first encounter proceeds in a low enough key with the confrontation
in the graveyard. Buffy has just described her nightly patrols in the
following
terms:
"Duty calls. It's a total drag"
But she certainly seems to be enjoying herself as she fights and kills an
obviously powerful vampire. And Dracula is impressed:
Dracula: "Very impressive hunt. Such power. "
Buffy: "That was no hunt. That was just another day on the job."
But the following is the most interesting exchange:
Dracula: "Why else would I come here? For the sun? I came to meet the
renowned
.. killer. "
Buffy: "Yeah, I prefer the term slayer. You know, killer just sounds
so... "
Dracula: "Naked?"
Buffy: "Like I ... paint clowns or something. I'm the good guy, remember?"
Dracula: "Perhaps, but your power is rooted in darkness. You must feel it."
The reference to the painting of clowns is I think intended to relate to
John Wayne Gacy, a notorious serial killer and the difference in terminology
is indeed a striking one. "Slayer" has all the connotations of an office
hallowed by age and by the justice of the cause - a noble warrior acting
in defence of the innocent. That is the essence of the job; killing
vampires
is merely a necessary part of it. "Killer" is by comparison indeed a naked
term. Here killing is the job and it defines the holder.
Count Famous Arrives
The interesting thing is that, having chosen to introduce the theme in a
very obvious way the writers then choose to examine it in a more indirect
manner. And the major clue comes when Willow explains Dracula's purpose:
"Dracula's modus operandi is different from other vampires. He will kill
just to feed, but he'd rather have a connection with his victims. And he
has all of these mental powers to draw them in."
Or, as Giles later observes:
"Um ... Just be aware that he, he tends to form a relationship with his
prey.
It's not enough for him to take her. She must want to be taken. She must
.. burn for him."
It was obvious from the start that for Buffy Dracula wasn't just another
vampire. She was clearly flattered by the fact that he had come to
Sunnydale
to see her:
Buffy: "I told you he'd heard of me, right? I mean, can you believe that?
Count Famous heard of me."
Riley: "I couldn't believe it the first twenty times you told us, but it's
starting to sink in now."
And certainly using Dracula's fame as a way of explaining Buffy's interest
in him works very well. Less successful was the suggesting that Dracula's
physical qualities helped attract Buffy, especially the attempted comparison
between her attraction to Angel. It isn't just the fact that Buffy is no
longer the impressionable schoolgirl that first fell in love with a
mysterious
vampire and now has the scars (literal and metaphorical) to prove it. It
is the fact that with all due respect to the actor concerned was sadly
lacking
in the charisma stakes. Even physically he seemed ill-suited being too thin
and with too skull-lie a face. Creepy he was; commanding, no. It strikes
me as an admission of failure when characters B and C have to keep on saying
how charismatic and sexy character A is rather than just leaving the actor
playing character A show it. So there was absolutely no conviction at all
in the way we were invited to believe that Buffy might be taken in by him.
But that was hardly the worst of the episode's problems.
The idea of a Buffy as a killer was always there in the background. After
all that was what she did. But the killing was always kept within strict
boundaries. Buffy did not want to be a slayer and was often forced
reluctantly
to do so. It was for she a duty. The rule against never killing something
with a soul and the rigid way Buffy stuck to it mean that her violence was
always controlled and used for a "good" purpose. We were therefore
encouraged
to approve of it and to believe that it was only employed because there was
no other way. Certainly we never had occasion to question its basic
morality.
But the ideas we see here open up an interesting question. Can violence
really be controlled? Is it not inherently "dark" and corrupting because
it gives us a sense of power and satisfaction? If you can through violence
control the fates of many and if the very act of killing produces a rush
within you, do you not develop a psychological need for those sensations.
Does the purpose of the killing mark a real objective difference or is the
justification for violence become essentially subjective and therefore
capable
of change?
But this is a theme that calls for some subtlety. If someone as decent and
as strong minded as Buffy can be led into darkness by the power within it
will not be through presenting her with clear choices between good and bad.
It will be through showing how her perceptions of the world are affected
by her killer instincts, allowing her to be led astray by her desire to do
the right thing. And this is the one thing we did not get in "Buffy vs
Dracula".
The idea that there was a darkness within was very well introduced. With
a slight shift in emphasis we were able to look at the things Buffy had been
doing all along through new eyes and seeing the darkness within. And that
depiction of Buffy as a natural born killer did carry the ring of truth
about
it. She does take to violence very easily, she is very good at what she
does and she does have the air of someone who is not only confident in
herself
but actually enjoys it. So, for example when she first meets Dracula we
have the following exchange:
Buffy: "Care to step up for some overtime?"
Dracula: "We're not going to fight. "
Buffy: "Do you *know* what a slayer is?"
But, as we have already seen Buffy's inner darkness is explored through the
way she reacts to Dracula. And the essential message is that he had power
over her because part of her wants to be like him - a soulless killer. But
this is basic, even crude stuff. We know nothing about Buffy that would
lead us to suspect she might give into such temptation. The mere possession
of the instinct to kill is not enough to explain how someone could turn
their
back on all they believe, especially since the writers have spent four years
showing us how strong that belief is. If the purpose was to look at Buffy
herself, then Dracula's arrival should simply have acted as a catalyst for
changes in her own psyche to show how the existing balance between the
darkness
and the opposing forces that kept it in check might become unbalanced. And
through that process we understand more about Buffy and the darkness within
her. But we look in vain for this. Indeed the writers themselves show no
understanding in this episode of how that instinct could turn someone like
Buffy towards the dark. The mere fact that they had to invoke mind control
as a way of making her reaction to Dracula even half-way plausible show they
recognize the inherent absurdity of suggesting that the killer instinct
within
Buffy would be enough to make her want to abandon any sense of right and
wrong. From the scene where Dracula entered her bedroom in the form of the
mist to the scene where she finally broke his "mind-control" I was actually
convinced she was faking it and was simply waiting impatiently for her to
say "fooled you". That is how interesting and plausible I thought the
writers
treatment of this theme was. And as a result from Dracula's entrance to
the end we learn nothing new about Buffy.
The climactic moment of this whole episode should have been in the following
exchange:
Dracula: "You are resisting. "
Buffy: "Looks like. "
Dracula: "Come here. Come to me. "
Buffy: "You know, I really think the thrall has gone out of our
relationship.
But I want to thank you for opening up my eyes a little. "
Dracula: "What is this? "
Buffy: "My true nature. You want a taste?"
Here we should have seen the resolution of a war within Buffy between that
part of her that simply wanted to kill and that part of her that was
genuinely
moral. But this moment is so anti-climactic because there is nothing in
this episode to indicate how and why Buffy felt herself torn. She wasn't
quite herself for reasons we don't understand and are never explained and
now she is herself again for reasons which are equally obscure.
The Slayer is Alone
A I have already noted, apart from being an engine of destruction, there
was one other thing that the first slayer was very insistent upon - that
she was alone. And the focus for this theme is, I think, intended to be
Giles' imminent departure. His rationale for going back to England is
remarkable
similar to the first slayer's view:
"Well, it's become quite obvious that Buffy doesn't need me. I-I don't say
that in a self-pitying way, I'm, I'm quite proud, actually."
But a scene near the end, Buffy does come to him for help:
"I need to know more. About where I come from, about the other slayers. I
mean, maybe ... maybe if I could learn to control this thing, I could be
stronger, I could be better. But ... I'm scared. I know it's gonna be hard.
And I can't do it ... without you. I need your help. I need you to be my
Watcher again."
And to some extent we also see in this episode how the Scoobies do play an
important role in Buffy's life. It's not only Willow being "research girl".
More especially Riley and the others find out what is wrong with her and
rally round to help by taking some of the load off her hands and trying to
protect her from Dracula. And eventually, just as Buffy turns her back on
the darkness so too she embraces her friends and thus completes the
repudiation
of the first slayer's words.
The problem here is that, in the end, the Scoobies do seem peripheral
characters.
Willow's role is more exposition than anything else. Xander is a positive
liability. Despite Riley's efforts Buffy is still served up to Dracula on
a plate and it is only because of her own "recovery" from thrall that she
saves the day. Even the plea made to Giles at the end rings hollow because
while the need to know more about the source of the slayer's powers is
supposed
to be the reason for keeping him in Sunnydale this is the last we hear of
it. Indeed this episode seems to represent the closing of a door on the
whole idea. The theme explored in "Buffy vs Dracula" represents something
of a new departure for BUFFY as a series. The mythology has always played
a secondary part - it was a means to an end. The end itself was to explore
the growing pains of the teenage girl as she grew into adulthood. The
mythology
was intended to create the framework in which the writers could develop
metaphors
for those growing pains. But the powers of a slayer, the source of those
powers and what that means for Buffy they do not fit easily into this
concept.
Instead the mythology of the series becomes the focal point of the
exploration.
And perhaps that is why, although it is a gem of an idea, it never really
worked out on BUFFY . Perhaps it did represent too much of a departure from
its basic mission statement. Moreover, perhaps, as conceived, it came just
too close to the basic concept for ANGEL as a series. I don't know. But
the way that the idea was brought out right at the beginning of the fifth
season and then unceremoniously dropped did suggest someone decided it
wasn't
going to work.
Plot
The real problem here is that the writers essentially fell between two
stools.
The storyline of "Buffy vs Dracula" is a pastiche of the Bram Stoker novel
"Dracula": the sudden storm heralding the arrival of the count on a foreign
shore; the castle on the hill; the vampire who sleeps in a coffin; Xander
as the insect-eating Renfield and Buffy in thrall to Dracula. All are
familiar
elements of the traditional story. So too is the vampire who can turn
himself
into a bat or a wolf or a cloud of mist and who will not stay dead. But
this is where we come to the first problem. There are significant
differences
between the vampire mythology of the Buffyverse and that of Dracula. None
of Dracula's powers have ever been associated with the vampires we are used
too. Indeed in WTTHM BUFFY made a joke out of the idea that vampires could
fly and in the ANGEL episode "Parting Gifts" Angel even tried to debunk
the myth that vampires slept in coffins. Dracula's intrusion into BUFFY
does therefore jar more than a little. Worse still is the attempt to
explain
away the special powers:
Riley: "But he's not just a regular vampire. I mean, he has special powers,
right?"
Spike: "Nothing but showy gypsy stuff. What's it to you, anyway?"
A vampire with those powers would indeed be a far more deadly threat than
any Buffy had ever faced and certainly the reference to "showy gypsy tricks"
explains nothing. But here we see the misjudgement at the heart of this
episode. Time and time again we see the writers send up the Dracula myth.
Sometimes they do this very well. I loved the Xander riff on the Sesame
Street Count:
"Vun, two, three -- three victims. Mwa ha ha!"
And indeed NB's Renfield impersonation was terrifically entertaining. So
too was Giles and the vampire vixens he tried so hard to escape from. But
you cannot simultaneously make a joke out of the Count and all his doings
and expect us to believe in him as a charismatic killer who can subvert
Buffy's
will. Indeed the character carries no threat at all. Let's just take the
last scene. The implications of a vampire who cannot be killed are
enormous.
But here it is treated like a joke. Buffy stakes him once. He reforms
and she stakes him again saying:
"You think I don't watch your movies? You always come back."
And then when he begins to reforms she says:
"I'm standing right here!"
And this apparently is enough. You cannot take an episode that treats its
Big Bad in this way seriously.
The other problem with the attempt to write a pastiche of the Dracula story
is that the plot becomes painfully predictable. The attempt by Dracula to
seduce and subvert Buffy was a nice way of using the Bram Stoker story but
it could only have had one ending. As I have already suggested my only
surprise
was that Buffy hadn't apparently been faking it all along. But that didn't
really matter. When you know for a fact what is coming there is no tension.
In fact where the only point of interest is precisely when Buffy was going
to set the Count on his ear the longer the denouement is delayed the more
the audience becomes impatient for it.
Moreover there was a lot of padding in this episode. The first scene
between
Willow and Xander was cute but pointless. So too was the Riley/Spike
confrontation.
The discussions of Dracula in Giles' apartment were also too long and the
scenes with Riley and Giles investigating Dracula's Castle led nowhere
either.
This was not an episode where the words economy or pacing had a lot of
meaning.
Overview
6.5/10 (C): This was not an auspicious start to season 5. As an episode
it had two strengths. First of all at its heart was a really good idea,
something that should have made both Buffy and us think about what it means
to be a slayer. But the really disappointing thing was that the writers
had nothing very insightful or intelligent to say about it. One is
therefore
left to ask what was the point of the episode, especially since the idea
was essentially dropped afterwards. Its second strength was that the
episode
did work as a pastiche of "Dracula". Anyone who knew the book or the films
of the book could play "spot the reference" and there were in particular
some fun scenes involving Xander, Giles and Willow/Tara. The bad news was
that this fatally undermined any pretension the writers had to explore some
dark issues and the plot was so painfully predictable that I couldn't wait
for the episode to end.