AOQ Review 7-20: "Touched"
Arbitrar Of Quality
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
(or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Director: David Solomon
Chaos reigns in the era of democracy. Or something. The stuff with
everyone talking at cross-purposes does its job, especially with
Wilow's quiet "you guys, I think we're wasting time arguing about
how to argue," which of course no one pays attention to. Eventually
Faith decides it's time for her to hide her uncertainty and shout
everyone down, and it's hard to blame her for quickly lording her new
power. It's like an example for a textbook about revolutions
compressed into a few minutes. Spike's entry looks like it could
restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
Very intense mini-fight between him and Slayer#2, nicely staged. It
says something that Giles has a pretty good "enough!" which gets
totally ignored. This is all enough to make a viewer feel plenty of
the good kind of frustration - there's an apocalypse going on, and
all these people spend most of their time yelling and hitting each
other. The gang eventually find a 'Bringer to interrogate, with some
nice use of Andrew, but don't learn much, and that part seems like
the weaker link of the episode's plotting. The fact that the outdoor
scenes with this crowd drag is the biggest factor weighing down the
episode.
Good lines: "Dear Mr. First: If you want your 'Bringer back... well,
we'll be surprised because you got, like, 3 million of them. So please
disregard this letter. Yours sincerely-"
"You sad, sad, ungrateful *traitors*"
Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war. The resulting
conversation... well, to say the least, it's impressive. It dances
through Faith, how much of this Buffy has brought upon herself, the B/S
arc from S6, identity as a Slayer and as a person, and makes it all
seem like a cohesive train of thought. Buffy's so certain, such a
convincing speechmaker, even when talking about depression and
uncertainty. For his part, Spike says some of the wrong things (i.e.
"connecting") and even in his monologue towards the end he can't
always stay on topic, but Buffy does the favor of listening to the
complete thought, and everyone's the better for it. As is so often
the case, the actors deserve a good part of the credit for making it
work so well, especially for the facial expressions, right down to
Spike's "is this for real?" look that closes the scene. All in
all, the outpouring of honest sentiment ranks among the series
highlights. It's been quite a journey for them getting to this
point, considering how things started, and how convincing this feels.
Just talking from a personal standpoint, I've always been resistant
to a B/S relationship, despite liking both characters a lot. Part of
it was that unsouled Spike was more interesting and consistent with the
show's mythology when he was more evil. Ergo, it was degrading to
Buffy's character to be with him, and discounting the crazier
"shippers," I don't think the series ever intended to let us
forget that. It's a big part of why "Crush" and "Dead
Things" worked. Then it took a few episodes before I adjusted to S7
Spike as his own man. Another aspect is that I've never been a fan
of couples that physically fight all the time, "cutely" or
violently, nor with any semblance of using rape as a way show how much
the misunderstood guy really cares. And through all this, I was
feeling Angel's absence hanging over everything. Now? After
"Touched," I think I can finally pledge my full support to the idea
of putting these two back together... depending on what the show wants
to do, of course.
Good lines: "You know what? I'm still making excuses. I've always
cut myself off"
"You're insufferable." "Thank you. That really helped."
"I'm not trying to cheer you up." "What are you trying to
say?" "I don't know. I'll know when I'm done saying it"
"When I say 'I love you,' it's not because I want you, or because
I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you
are"
"I don't wanna be the one." "I don't wanna be this good looking
and athletic. We all have crosses to bear." [Introducing a core
concern like that and then making it seem kinda silly without totally
diminishing it is a skill. And the way Gellar does the short laugh
afterward is absolutely perfect]
Everyone's pairing up in parallel in one of those "last dance
before Graduation Day" ways; Buffy and Spike are unique in that
there's no clear suggestion of clothes coming off and such. In the
meantime, Faith is lucky enough to have a chat with the First, who in
its conversations with Caleb doesn't seem nearly as confident as it
may have led the viewer to believe. The idea that its manifestations
are, in some way, part of the people it's imitating, is always
something I've said is important to make the premise work, going back
to its Calendar in "Amends." The conversation between Faith and
the father figure that she knows isn't real but keeps saying things
that sound right is solid. This leads her and Robin to hop into bed
together, which I saw coming the moment he entered, given the parallel
positions to B/S, and given that it's Faith here. The way she
considers trying to pass her visitor off as nothing and then doesn't
is particularly well played.
Good lines: "Well, it sounds retarded, but he was like a dad to
me." "Oh. It was my mother when it came to me. And I mean it was
her, right down to the perfume." ... "I'm just so pissed off at
myself. I knew it was a trick." "Yeah, so did I, but I still
wanted my mother to hold me like a little baby. In a manly way, of
course"
"I'm an ex-con who didn't finish high school." "Yeah, well I'm
the principal of a school where nobody finished"
And in the meantime, Kennedy continues to try to cast herself as
exactly perfectly what Willow needs to deal with her fear (the show
hasn't really done all that much with the latter this season).
Personal bias here: I feel like I'd be more accepting of the same
scene with different characters. Quite simply, I don't like Kennedy,
and probably never will. I hate seeing my favorite character spending
so much of the last few episodes of the series with her and away from
the other stars. This is the stance of AOQ Reviews with regard to this
and all future scenes between them, and AOQ Reviews will never mention
this pairing again unless it becomes absolutely necessary. The end.
And in the meantime, another "one more time" for the series's
longest-running on-again off-again lovers. I was amused. And in the
meantime, one more pairing in a scene matched with the others is
between Buffy/First and Caleb, giving as close a look as we seem likely
to ever get into how either of them operates. I'll sidestep the
effort of trying to put it into words and just call it
"interesting." Especially the manifestation of evil itself or
whatever just wanting to feel something. And since it's not
corporeal, the screwing-a-vampire strategy is out...
I really want to know what that note said. Buffy going into the
wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
occurred to me. Well, it's a very specific situation. This is
energetic, and has some humor from a dark place too. We'll have to
see what the shiny new weapon does.
Good lines: "Caleb, this is getting embarrassing." "Do you have
to look like that?" "Will you concentrate?" "'Cuz it's just a
little confusin'." "Fine. Go. Kill"
The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
You know what's been bothering me in a very vague way that I just
realized? When I hear the word "vineyard" I think of outdoors, and
nature, and grapes. The Caleb/First set calls to mind the term "wine
cellar" rather than "vineyard."
I came up with my alternate title for the episode before flipping
through the chapter selection on the DVDs, seriously. Guess it was an
obvious one.
Note on ratings: This is another example of how my ratings aren't an
exact science, nor are they meant to be, often lumping together some
variations in quality. "Dirty Girls" was a solid Good, with
enthusiasm but also with reservations. "Empty Places" was more of
a reluctant Good, slightly begrudging. This one I'm calling a high
Good, not too far removed from Excellent. Actually, you know what?
The hell with it, it has some flaws, but it made me a B/S fan.
Excellent. Good job, Rebecca, you get one too.
So...
One-sentence summary: Dare I say it, touching?
AOQ rating: Excellent
[Season Seven so far:
1) "Lessons" - Good
2) "Beneath You" - Decent
3) "Same Time, Same Place" - Excellent
4) "Help" - Good
5) "Selfless" - SUPERLATIVE
6) "Him" - Bad
7) "Conversations With Dead People" - Good
8) "Sleeper" - Decent
9) "Never Leave Me" - Good
10) "Bring On The Night" - Decent
11) "Showtime" - Good
12) "Potential" - Good
13) "The Killer In Me" - Weak
14) "First Date" - Decent
15) "Get It Done" - Decent
16) "Storyteller" - Good
17) "Lies My Parents Told Me" - Decent
18) "Dirty Girls" - Good
19) "Empty Places" - Good
20) "Touched" - Excellent]
burt...@hotmail.com
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
Another candidate for worst episode of the entire series. There's very
little here except wall-to-wall pandering to the hard core Spike fans.
First, we see that the entire reason for everyone dropping Buffy as
leader was so Joss could show that Spike is the only one she can count
on for support, so the Spike fen could sigh happily and say "Look!
Everyone in Buffy's house is an ungrateful little bitch who doesn't
appreciate her, but Spike does! He's the best, most perfect man ever!"
Then we have three incredibly awkward and uncomfortable sex scenes
whose only purpose is to show how much more "romantic" Buffy and Spike
are as a couple because they sleep together without having sex.
And finally, it's Spike who gives Buffy the strength and confidence to
go face Caleb. Aw, isn't it sweet? I guess the message Joss is sending
here is that women should take back their abusive boyfriends because
they're really great people who can be good sources of strength and
support.
And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
fiat FTW.
It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
*this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
MBangel10 (Melissa)
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
>
>
> I really want to know what that note said. Buffy going into the
> wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
> Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
> contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
> occurred to me. Well, it's a very specific situation. This is
> energetic, and has some humor from a dark place too. We'll have to
> see what the shiny new weapon does.
I finally got my computer working again after almost 2 weeks without....
I hate it when crappy computers go dead.
I can actually help with the letter though, so I give you the note as it
was put on Ebay and auctioned off with quite a few other Buffy props.
Here's the link:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/mbangel10/BuffylettertoSpike.jpg
>
> Good lines: "Caleb, this is getting embarrassing." "Do you have
> to look like that?" "Will you concentrate?" "'Cuz it's just a
> little confusin'." "Fine. Go. Kill"
>
> The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
> there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
> I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
> intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
>
> You know what's been bothering me in a very vague way that I just
> realized? When I hear the word "vineyard" I think of outdoors, and
> nature, and grapes. The Caleb/First set calls to mind the term "wine
> cellar" rather than "vineyard."
>
> I came up with my alternate title for the episode before flipping
> through the chapter selection on the DVDs, seriously. Guess it was an
> obvious one.
>
> Note on ratings: This is another example of how my ratings aren't an
> exact science, nor are they meant to be, often lumping together some
> variations in quality. "Dirty Girls" was a solid Good, with
> enthusiasm but also with reservations. "Empty Places" was more of
> a reluctant Good, slightly begrudging. This one I'm calling a high
> Good, not too far removed from Excellent. Actually, you know what?
> The hell with it, it has some flaws, but it made me a B/S fan.
> Excellent. Good job, Rebecca, you get one too.
>
If any episode could make someone a B/S fan, it is this one.
>
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: Dare I say it, touching?
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
I completely agree, the only thing that drags this episode down a bit is
Kennedy because I really just want to bitch slap her.
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
>
> You know what's been bothering me in a very vague way that I just
> realized? When I hear the word "vineyard" I think of outdoors, and
> nature, and grapes. The Caleb/First set calls to mind the term "wine
> cellar" rather than "vineyard."
That bugged me too. I would have called it a winery, in a vineyard.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
> Very intense mini-fight between him and Slayer#2, nicely staged. It
> says something that Giles has a pretty good "enough!" which gets
i get the feeling this wasnt a fight as much as faith maneuverign spike
such as she wanted to give him an emotional release
while getting him to the door
in theory an experienced slayer should be able to beat even spike to a pulp
so i dont think faith actually felt threatened
> "You sad, sad, ungrateful *traitors*"
>
> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war. The resulting
> conversation... well, to say the least, it's impressive. It dances
> through Faith, how much of this Buffy has brought upon herself, the B/S
unfortunately a big chunk of spikes speech is all wrong
what he is whining about is the politics of the situation
how dare they disagree with gods chosen queen buffy
and how buffy has to approach it as treason
and put down the rebellion and punish traitors
so buffy can be boss again
the mission isnt being the big boss
the mission is dealing with the threat to the slayer line
this is the balcony again
with spike whispering in her ear away from everyone else
trying to keep her isolated
last time with malicious intent
i dont think this time is malicious just he misunderstands the situation
> Everyone's pairing up in parallel in one of those "last dance
> before Graduation Day" ways; Buffy and Spike are unique in that
think about how it ends with the first jealous of their bodies
and wanting so much to be corporeal
theres a scene in the second matrix movie with the celebration in the temple
that people seem to dismiss as gratituous diversion
whats being presented is the argument that we are indeed animals
theres a pride among some humans that we are more than animals
that we are supposed to be above primitives like lust and hunger
leading an ascetic life denial of the mere animal
and elevation of the intellectual and-or spiritual
caleb unable to cope with his own lust is in the asceitc vanity and denial
but first evil brings it back that the joy of life is not in abstractions
but to touch and feel of denial and pleasure of waiting and release
(we reach the abstract by abstracting from the physical)
and we are reminded that our heroes are physiccally joyously and sweatily human
> that sound right is solid. This leads her and Robin to hop into bed
thatll end well
> I really want to know what that note said. Buffy going into the
> wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
> Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
> contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
> occurred to me. Well, it's a very specific situation. This is
> energetic, and has some humor from a dark place too. We'll have to
> see what the shiny new weapon does.
buffy is finally learning
she uses the ground to her advantage instead of calebs
shes smaller lither and able to exploit areas caleb cannot reach
instead of trying to trade blows with caleb she evades him
at last some success
> The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
> there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
> I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
> intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
end of the season rush
end of the series rush
when its more like long movie instead of series episodes
> You know what's been bothering me in a very vague way that I just
> realized? When I hear the word "vineyard" I think of outdoors, and
> nature, and grapes. The Caleb/First set calls to mind the term "wine
> cellar" rather than "vineyard."
vineyard refers to the entire complex
the vines the pressing the fermentation caves the house
the whole kit and kaboodle
when they talk about the grape vines themselves
they refer to the -vines- and not as a -vinyard-
meow arf meow - they are performing horrible experiments in space
major grubert is watching you - beware the bakalite
there can only be one or two - the airtight garage has you neo
BTR1701
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
I never much liked how Buffy just walked into someone else's home and
essentially kicked him out of it. Not the sort of thing heroes do.
BTR1701
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> > A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> > threads.
> >
> >
> > BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> > Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> > (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> > Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> > Director: David Solomon
>
> Another candidate for worst episode of the entire series. There's very
> little here except wall-to-wall pandering to the hard core Spike fans.
Well, us hard-core Faith fans did get to see her soundly whip his ass,
and that's never bad.
BTR1701
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
> there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
> I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
> intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
Just warning you ahead of time: one of the casualties of them cutting
out the "previously on Buffy" lead-ins is that you never actually get to
see the explosion in the next episode. It somehow accidentally got cut
out along with the re-caps when they made the DVDs.
So if it seems like you missed something between this episode and the
next one... well, you did. Nothing to be done about it, either.
John Briggs
Well, you can always buy an overseas release (I've just watched it on the
R2 set) - it's only the R1 sets where they cut the previouslies: "Because
Americans don't like previouslies".
Mind you, just to remind us that Fox are morons, they inflicted us with
Firefly and Roswell trailers before the warning notices on disc six. Morons.
--
John Briggs
Ken from Chicago
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
<snip>
Note on ratings: This is another example of how my ratings aren't an
> exact science, nor are they meant to be, often lumping together some
> variations in quality. "Dirty Girls" was a solid Good, with
> enthusiasm but also with reservations. "Empty Places" was more of
> a reluctant Good, slightly begrudging. This one I'm calling a high
> Good, not too far removed from Excellent. Actually, you know what?
> The hell with it, it has some flaws, but it made me a B/S fan.
Thus, endeth the lesson.
> Excellent. Good job, Rebecca, you get one too.
>
>
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: Dare I say it, touching?
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
If it helps to understand, at least part of the Spuffy-shippers saw Spike as
he could be, as he should be, not merely as the vampire that he was but the
vampire he wanted to b-er, perhaps I had it at "lesson".
The point, was by the end of S5, many saw what Spike was trying to reach for
that was not within his grasp personal-growth-wise, and willing to credit
his good intentions, especially from "Intervention" onward.
Then again, some identified with him from "Fool For Love".
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. Yeah, what are the odds straight male fans of scifi might identify with
a guy who was not the richest, famous, talented, smartest, smoothest, most
popular guy, who couldn't the hand of his ladylove, and who still stayed at
home? Really, what possible common ground could they have?
Ken from Chicago
"BTR1701" <btr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:btr1702-849E62...@news.giganews.com...
I TOLD YOU! It was indeed YOUR favorite Spike moment!
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer/msg/5cad5636fea6f136?hl=en&
-- Ken from Chicago (once again, proven oh so right)
(Harmony) Watcher
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
The following dialog alone renders much of the First's purported plot
nonsensical:
quote
...
THE FIRST/BUFFY: Will you concentrate?
CALEB: It's just a little confusing.
THE FIRST/BUFFY: Fine. Go. Kill. (disappears)
...
unquote (http://bdb.vrya.net/bdb/clip.php?clip=4127)
What? With many Potentials still walking and standing in the Summer's house,
now Caleb can kill Buffy? Why couldn't he kill Buffy in the high school?
No episode in Season 7, in my opnion, deserves an "excellent" except
"Selfless".
But I like Heather Nova.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Ken from Chicago
"Don Sample" <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote in message
news:dsample-731E33...@news.giganews.com...
They were in the winery ON the vineyard.
-- Ken from Chicago
Don Sample
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> The following dialog alone renders much of the First's purported plot
> nonsensical:
> quote
> ...
> THE FIRST/BUFFY: Will you concentrate?
> CALEB: It's just a little confusing.
> THE FIRST/BUFFY: Fine. Go. Kill. (disappears)
> ...
> unquote (http://bdb.vrya.net/bdb/clip.php?clip=4127)
>
> What? With many Potentials still walking and standing in the Summer's house,
> now Caleb can kill Buffy? Why couldn't he kill Buffy in the high school?
Because it wanted Buffy to lead the MC30 into a trap. Now it's got
Faith leading them into the trap, and Buffy's no longer working with
them. She's on her own.
The First has never been one to tie itself to just one plan. It's
always looking for new opportunities, and will throw away an old plan
that no longer looks promising.
Mel
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
> actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
> couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
> not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
> fiat FTW.
It wasn't a better plan. It was the same plan in a different location.
Mel
Mel
John Briggs wrote:
They did? I didn't see any on my disc 6. Are you talking about R1 or R2?
Mel
kenm47
I would just say IAWTP, except the post is too kind.
Boy, I can hardly wait to read next ep's review, and happily just one
more after that.
Yikes!
Ken (Brooklyn)
(Harmony) Watcher
> In article <4zzYg.148055$R63.114110@pd7urf1no>,
> "\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
>
> > The following dialog alone renders much of the First's purported plot
> > nonsensical:
> > quote
> > ...
> > THE FIRST/BUFFY: Will you concentrate?
> > CALEB: It's just a little confusing.
> > THE FIRST/BUFFY: Fine. Go. Kill. (disappears)
> > ...
> > unquote (http://bdb.vrya.net/bdb/clip.php?clip=4127)
> >
> > What? With many Potentials still walking and standing in the Summer's
house,
> > now Caleb can kill Buffy? Why couldn't he kill Buffy in the high school?
>
> Because it wanted Buffy to lead the MC30 into a trap. Now it's got
> Faith leading them into the trap, and Buffy's no longer working with
> them. She's on her own.
>
For argument's sake, assume one of the Potentials in the Summer's house was
activated. The First would still be in the better end of the deal: Faith +
one inexperienced Slayer instead of Faith + Buffy. Then the responsibility
of the group would fall squarely on Faith's shoulders, and Faith would
still lead the Potentials into the trap.
>
> The First has never been one to tie itself to just one plan. It's
> always looking for new opportunities, and will throw away an old plan
> that no longer looks promising.
>
The more I think about it, the more I think The First was dumb instead of
just multitasking.
Also, whatever happened to Giles' "strudel" throwing gig? With such powerful
magickal trick that could even bind Darth Rosenberg for a long while, he
could at least try to bind Caleb for a long while. All in all, the writers
seem to have conveniently forgotten or ignored the fact that Giles was a
powerful wizard.
I've said this before, but the least the group could try is to invoke the
"sha me en den" (or something like that) spell on Caleb to see if it would
work. First Slayer with bad teeth be damned. That they never tried it on
Glory or on Caleb do not speak well of the group's "weapons officer"
(actually there was none in that official capacity).
--
==Harmony Watcher==
George W Harris
<nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
:Also, whatever happened to Giles' "strudel" throwing gig? With such powerful
:magickal trick that could even bind Darth Rosenberg for a long while, he
:could at least try to bind Caleb for a long while. All in all, the writers
:seem to have conveniently forgotten or ignored the fact that Giles was a
:powerful wizard.
That was borrowed power, from the coven. Temporary.
--
/bud...@nirvana.net/h:k
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
David E. Milligan
"mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges"
<mair_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mair_fheal-2FA82...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...
>> restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
>> insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
>> Very intense mini-fight between him and Slayer#2, nicely staged. It
>> says something that Giles has a pretty good "enough!" which gets
>
> i get the feeling this wasnt a fight as much as faith maneuverign spike
> such as she wanted to give him an emotional release
> while getting him to the door
>
> in theory an experienced slayer should be able to beat even spike to a
> pulp
> so i dont think faith actually felt threatened
>
Well, two of them didn't. But maybe it was their first day on the
job.
Exp315
Yeah, that was really annoying. One of the better FX the show ever did,
and they cut it accidentally. Fox Video are morons. Oh well, I have it
recorded.
Apteryx
news:1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
> restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
> insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
Spike, the voice of reason - "You sad, sad, ungrateful traitors."
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
This is a looong way from Excellent for me. Part of that is that it is a
continuation of the totally fake Buffy Contra Mundum storyline. Part is
that what lifts Buffy from the Pit of Despair is the Love of a Good
Vampire. Plenty of people like stories like that, but there are plenty
of other TV shows to cater for them. Why did they have to bring it into
BtVS?. Looking for the positives, its got the Mayor, and... no, that's
pretty much all. Touched has a close rival for the position of worst
ever BtVS episode (unfortunately still to come) that plumbs lower depths
than Touched, but it has redeeming qualities as well. Touched takes that
position for me because, apart from the Mayor, there's just nothing
there for me. So, its Bad, and 144th best BtVS episode, 22nd best in
season 7.
--
Apteryx
Don Sample
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> I've said this before, but the least the group could try is to invoke the
> "sha me en den" (or something like that) spell on Caleb to see if it would
> work.
The combo-Slayer spell has several drawbacks. One of them is that it is
very short range. Willow, Giles and Xander all had to be close to Buffy
when they cast it, and once cast, they were all sitting ducks. If
anything had happened to any of them, the whole thing would have fallen
apart.
Arbitrar Of Quality
> Then we have three incredibly awkward and uncomfortable sex scenes
> whose only purpose is to show how much more "romantic" Buffy and Spike
> are as a couple because they sleep together without having sex.
Most of the post is "like, your opinion, man" so I don't feel a need to
object, but this is one thing I'm not seeing at all. I don't see any
attempt to demean anyone's sex scenes to elevate B/S here. Everyone's
seeking comfort in other people. The W/K scene was meant to be
romantic; it's only awkward because it's bad, not for any intentional
reason. And there's a lot of loaded romance in the X/A thing too.
> And finally, it's Spike who gives Buffy the strength and confidence to
> go face Caleb. Aw, isn't it sweet? I guess the message Joss is sending
> here is that women should take back their abusive boyfriends because
> they're really great people who can be good sources of strength and
> support.
The problme with trying to turn everything into a "message" is that it
inevitably ignores the details. Here, for example, Spike was only an
abusive boyfriend pre-soul. Does he deserve to be blamed for any of
that now? Well, the situation is equivalent to the way it was during
The Angel Years, so it's not like Buffy or her show don't have a
history of this kind of forgiveness.
-AOQ
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
> First, we see that the entire reason for everyone dropping Buffy as
> leader was so Joss could show that Spike is the only one she can count
> on for support, so the Spike fen could sigh happily and say "Look!
> Everyone in Buffy's house is an ungrateful little bitch who doesn't
> appreciate her, but Spike does! He's the best, most perfect man ever!"
Careful, your issues are showing through.
> Then we have three incredibly awkward and uncomfortable sex scenes
> whose only purpose is to show how much more "romantic" Buffy and Spike
> are as a couple because they sleep together without having sex.
> And finally, it's Spike who gives Buffy the strength and confidence to
> go face Caleb. Aw, isn't it sweet? I guess the message Joss is sending
> here is that women should take back their abusive boyfriends because
> they're really great people who can be good sources of strength and
> support.
And you persist in almost wilfully putting the worst possible
interpretation on things.
> And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
> actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
> couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
> not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
> fiat FTW.
Yeah except that it was essentially the same plan.
> It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
> *this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
I find it hard to believe you persist in posting about something you
hate.
--
You can't stop the signal
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
> Note on ratings: This is another example of how my ratings aren't an
> exact science, nor are they meant to be, often lumping together some
> variations in quality. "Dirty Girls" was a solid Good, with
> enthusiasm but also with reservations. "Empty Places" was more of
> a reluctant Good, slightly begrudging. This one I'm calling a high
> Good, not too far removed from Excellent. Actually, you know what?
> The hell with it, it has some flaws, but it made me a B/S fan.
> Excellent. Good job, Rebecca, you get one too.
I actually agree with you on these 3 episodes and I'd leave Touched as a
high Good. There's a lot in it to like but there's a lot that is cheesy
and contrived, the juxtaposition of the sex scenes didn't work all that
well although I can see the point to it.
[snip]
Kermit
I never lost much sleep over it, but yeah it is strange, particularly
since the town by this point was littered with vacant homes to choose from.
burt...@hotmail.com
Buffy's plan was to take everyone, charge right back in, and fight
Caleb again. Faith's plan was to avoid Caleb.
How is that the same?
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
it wasnt his house anymore
it was never his house
got any tea?
burt...@hotmail.com
> burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Then we have three incredibly awkward and uncomfortable sex scenes
> > whose only purpose is to show how much more "romantic" Buffy and Spike
> > are as a couple because they sleep together without having sex.
>
> Most of the post is "like, your opinion, man" so I don't feel a need to
> object, but this is one thing I'm not seeing at all. I don't see any
> attempt to demean anyone's sex scenes to elevate B/S here. Everyone's
> seeking comfort in other people. The W/K scene was meant to be
> romantic; it's only awkward because it's bad, not for any intentional
> reason. And there's a lot of loaded romance in the X/A thing too.
Oh, I don't mean they made the sex scenes awkward and uncomfortable on
purpose. I think it was just bad directing and lack of chemistry
between the actors that did that. But the B/S scene was set up in
direct contrast to the three sex scenes, and we were clearly supposed
to think that Buffy and Spike were more "romantic" because they were
happy to just be with each other and didn't need to have sex.
> > And finally, it's Spike who gives Buffy the strength and confidence to
> > go face Caleb. Aw, isn't it sweet? I guess the message Joss is sending
> > here is that women should take back their abusive boyfriends because
> > they're really great people who can be good sources of strength and
> > support.
>
> The problme with trying to turn everything into a "message" is that it
> inevitably ignores the details. Here, for example, Spike was only an
> abusive boyfriend pre-soul. Does he deserve to be blamed for any of
> that now? Well, the situation is equivalent to the way it was during
> The Angel Years, so it's not like Buffy or her show don't have a
> history of this kind of forgiveness.
The problem is that while there was a great deal of difference between
Angel and Angelus, there was very little difference between souled and
unsouled Spike. Joss had the opportunity to really change Spike's
character, but for whatever reason he had him continue in exactly the
same way he was before he got his soul back. He never showed any
remorse for any of the people he'd killed, he still had exactly the
same attitude, he still wore the coat of the last Slayer he'd killed as
a trophy and symbol of his manliness or whatever - he was pretty much
exactly the same as soulless Spike. And so trying to absolve him of his
past sins is extremely problematic, though that's clearly what Joss
wanted.
Rowan Hawthorn
She thought that one *was* vacant when she went in. And she didn't kick
him out; she apparently didn't even know when he left, because she was
still talking to him from the kitchen after he was gone. Her suggestion
that he "really should leave" was in reference to the general exodus
from Sunnydale, and, under the circumstances, was a good one; she was
pretty much right when she told him: "It’s not your house. It’s not your
town. Not anymore."
--
Rowan Hawthorn
"Occasionally, I'm callous and strange." - Willow Rosenberg, "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer"
burt...@hotmail.com
> On 15 Oct 2006 14:45:53 -0700, burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > First, we see that the entire reason for everyone dropping Buffy as
> > leader was so Joss could show that Spike is the only one she can count
> > on for support, so the Spike fen could sigh happily and say "Look!
> > Everyone in Buffy's house is an ungrateful little bitch who doesn't
> > appreciate her, but Spike does! He's the best, most perfect man ever!"
>
> Careful, your issues are showing through.
Careful, your stupidity is showing through.
> > And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
> > actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
> > couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
> > not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
> > fiat FTW.
>
> Yeah except that it was essentially the same plan.
Except no, it wasn't. Faith's plan was to avoid Caleb - the polar
opposite of Buffy's plan.
> > It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
> > *this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
>
> I find it hard to believe you persist in posting about something you
> hate.
*shrug* Maybe I just feel the need to introduce a different point of
view into the overwhelming lovefest these review threads have become?
davi...@supanet.com
>
> > And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
> > actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
> > couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
> > not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
> > fiat FTW.
>
> Yeah except that it was essentially the same plan.
>
My understanding was that Buffy wanted to charge in because she felt it
would be a good idea, with no clear objective, in the identical manner
to that which killed two and badly wounded two previously. No change in
tactics, no reason for repetition, no attempt to shift the odds, just
barrelling in without any real clue as to what they are trying to do on
Buffy's instinct.
Faith's plan was to first isolate something from which information
might be gained, which was done. Information from this suggested that
there might be an armoury, provided a clear objective - go in,
grab/destroy the weapons, get out.
One can grant that the premise - take a bunch of potentials into a
confined space where attrition may do a job, thank you very much -
suggests similarities in the plan (V abgr gung gur Svefg abj qbrfa'g
frrz obgurerq nobhg nggrzcgf gb xvyy Snvgu nybat jvgu gur bgure
cbgragvnyf. Unat ba, jnfa'g gur cbvag gb xvyy bss gur cbgragvnyf juvyr
yrnivat gur Fynlref hagbhpurq. Bu jryy, gur Svefg vfa'g gur funecrfg
gbby va gur obk). However, the simple fact that in Faith's plan, there
is a clear objective and that in Buffy's plan, there isn't, indicates
that it is not correct to say that the plans are the same.
Elisi
> > threads.
> >
> >
> > Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> > (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> > Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> > Director: David Solomon
>
> Another candidate for worst episode of the entire series. There's very
> little here except wall-to-wall pandering to the hard core Spike fans.
>
> leader was so Joss could show that Spike is the only one she can count
> on for support, so the Spike fen could sigh happily and say "Look!
> Everyone in Buffy's house is an ungrateful little bitch who doesn't
> appreciate her, but Spike does! He's the best, most perfect man ever!"
Just like the _only_ reason the Buffy/Spike sex happened in S6 was
because they wanted to bring in Riley!
Please.
Buffy has been isolating herself all season. Actually Buffy has
*always* been isolating herself, esp since Angel broke her heart. The
reason the moment is so important is because _Buffy lets someone in_! I
love the fact that it is Spike of course, but I'm not insane enough to
think that this show has only been telling one story for the past many
years.
> Then we have three incredibly awkward and uncomfortable sex scenes
> whose only purpose is to show how much more "romantic" Buffy and Spike
> are as a couple because they sleep together without having sex.
Um, no? It's all about people reaching out - finding comfort in each
other, being touched. Buffy and Spike have been close physically, but
not otherwise - hence their different sort of moment. The action all
comes from the characters (as usual).
> And finally, it's Spike who gives Buffy the strength and confidence to
> go face Caleb. Aw, isn't it sweet? I guess the message Joss is sending
> here is that women should take back their abusive boyfriends because
> they're really great people who can be good sources of strength and
> support.
She's a twice-dead Vampire Slayer, with super strength and Spike is a
100+ years old vampire, who has killed two Slayers, been chipped,
fallen in love with Buffy and got his soul back. I fail to see how it
is a classic case of 'an abusive boyfriend'. What with the regular kind
having souls and all that. (And if you can't see the differnce between
usouled and souled Spike then you're really, really not loooking hard
enough.)
> And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
> actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
> couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
> not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
> fiat FTW.
No Buffy had the right *idea* (Caleb was protecting something at the
vineyard), but the *wrong* plan (go in with force). What happened was
that she came up with a better plan (a scalpel rather than a hammer),
and thus succeeded. (And the whole thing might have tought her some
humility too!)
> It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
> *this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
What's mindboggling is the way your mind distorts things. Are we meant
to see murderers as 'cool'? Because that message could certainly be
taken from Buffy S3! Evil!Faith is very hot...
Elisi
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
>
> Faith decides it's time for her to hide her uncertainty and shout
> everyone down, and it's hard to blame her for quickly lording her new
> power. It's like an example for a textbook about revolutions
It always amuses me. Faith steps up to the challenge though.
> The gang eventually find a 'Bringer to interrogate, with some
> nice use of Andrew, but don't learn much, and that part seems like
> the weaker link of the episode's plotting. The fact that the outdoor
> scenes with this crowd drag is the biggest factor weighing down the
> episode.
It's a good plan, as is looking for the arsenal. It goes wrong, just
like the first attack on the vineyard, but that's life.
> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war. The resulting
> conversation... well, to say the least, it's impressive. It dances
> through Faith, how much of this Buffy has brought upon herself, the B/S
I'm just pretty stunned by this. Wow. Loving the scene myself, I'm very
pleased of course! :) But let me try to say something constructive
about Spike's speech:
1) It's a faint echo of Riley's speech in AYW. That bit never worked
for me in AYW, because Riley got dumped into the story with no
knowledge of what was happening, told Buffy: "So your life sucks - hey,
you're still a special lady!" and promptly vanished. It gave Buffy the
incentive/strength to break up with Spike, but it didn't really change
anything beyond that - two episodes later she was trying to kill her
friends. Now in 'Touched' Spike has been around for years and years,
knows *exactly* what Buffy's been through and is actually able to make
a real difference to her with his words. I quoted Angelus in the 'Empty
Places' review:
Angelus: If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of
peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank...
Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
Buffy has been closing herself off for years (it was why Riley left
f.ex.), but now she has finally let someone in. Will it end in pain
again?
2) It's a parallel to Riley's declaration of love in 'The Replacement'.
In case you've forgotten, Riley made a beautiful big speech then - and
Buffy barely said a word in response. Prompting his 'But she doesn't
love me." at the end of the ep. But to borrow the words of
Scarlettgirl:
~~~
"The difference is that with Riley, his love was hinged on Buffy making
him feel a certain set of emotions. When he no longer felt he was
getting his emotional fix from Buffy he made the choice to end the
relationship.
With Spike, whether he was getting the emotional validation from Buffy
that he craved or whether she was beating him into the pavement and
making him feel like dust, HE STILL LOVED HER. His love was not based
on emotional feedback.
Riley loved Buffy and the way Buffy made him feel. Spike loved Buffy
despite how Buffy made him feel."
~~~
(Of course it's perfectly reasonable to want the person you're in a
relationship with to love you back, and Riley was justified in leaving.
But he also admitted defeat when doing so.)
3) It's a mirror of Buffy's speech to Spike in 'Never Leave Me'. I'm
going to quote 'awmp' this time:
~~~
01 You listen to me./ Listen to me.
aren't our two some bossy little attention whores? ;)
02 I've been alive a bit longer than you.../ You aren't alive because
of hate or pain.
the subject: Spike being alive/his history. even though he refers
himself in his next sentence as dead, Buffy sees him alive. He faces
his past in this paragraph, while her words can be seen as the perfect
response.
03 ...one thing I've been sure of: You./ ...because I saw you change. I
saw your penance.
both talk about their trust in each other. what they see in the other
one.
04 the reactions
both of them don't want to hear what the other one says.
05 Hey look at me.../ Be easier, wouldn't it...
both insist on their point of view, and admit that the situation isn't
exactly easy.
06 I've seen the best and the worst of you/ You faced the monster
inside of you and you fought it back.
they do know each other, the best and the worst. they don't see the
pedestalled versions but the true persons behind the masks. see also
...what you are. and You are. of the next sentences. again with the
same word choice. and reduced to the essence. they see what they are.
07 You're the one, Buffy./ I believe in you, Spike.
awww. that's all.
~~~
It demonstrates perfectly what is so wonderful about S7 Spuffy - they
make each other stronger. As Hunter Maxin put it:
"Spike does what Angel never did, never could, and never tried. Spike
makes her stronger. Spike gives her faith. Spike gives her a reason to
win."
4) Also Spike's speech is the perfect response to Buffy's dilemma in
CWDP. Remember her superiority/inferiority complex? Spike gets past it:
Buffy: 'Cause even though they love me, it doesn't mean anything 'cause
their opinions don't matter. They don't know. They haven't been through
what I've been through. They're not the slayer. I am. Sometimes I feel
- this is awful - I feel like I'm better than them. Superior.
Spike: I've been alive a bit longer than you and dead a lot longer
than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine and done things
I'd prefer you didn't. I don't exactly have a reputation for
being a thinker. I follow my blood which doesn't exactly rush in the
direction of my brain so I make a lot of mistakes. A lot of wrong
bloody calls. A hundred plus years and there's only one thing I've
ever been sure of. You.
Here Spike puts _himself_ in the superior position. He's older, he's
been trough more things, and while that doesn't make him better in any
way, he can pull rank as it were.
Holden: All chosen. All destiny. Who could live with that for seven
years and not feel superior?
Buffy: I'm not. My God, if anything, I -
Holden: What?
Buffy: I just - if you knew what I've done, what I've let myself
become. My best friends don't even - You'd laugh, you heard some of the
things I've done to them. [...] I have all this power. I didn't ask for
it. I don't deserve it. [...] I feel like I'm worse than anyone.
Honestly, I'm beneath them. My friends, my boyfriends. I feel like I'm
not worthy of their love.
Spike: I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your
kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you
and I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You are a
hell of a woman. You're the one, Buffy.
And then Spike can lift her up again: He's seen it all. The good, the
bad, the really, really ugly. Riley might have said 'None of that
touches you', but what did he know? (At least that's how Buffy saw it.)
Spike on the other hand _can_ say it, knowing that Buffy has to take
him seriously. He isn't a lovestruck Angel, or a clueless Riley. He's
Spike - the one who tried to pull her into the darkness, but who can
also acknowledge that her light still shines brightly. So brightly that
it brought him out from the dark and into the light.
> In the
> meantime, Faith is lucky enough to have a chat with the First, who in
> its conversations with Caleb doesn't seem nearly as confident as it
> may have led the viewer to believe. The idea that its manifestations
> are, in some way, part of the people it's imitating, is always
> something I've said is important to make the premise work, going back
> to its Calendar in "Amends." The conversation between Faith and
> the father figure that she knows isn't real but keeps saying things
> that sound right is solid. This leads her and Robin to hop into bed
> together, which I saw coming the moment he entered, given the parallel
> positions to B/S, and given that it's Faith here. The way she
> considers trying to pass her visitor off as nothing and then doesn't
> is particularly well played.
I love that scene - and the aftermath.
> Buffy going into the
> wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
> Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
> contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
> occurred to me.
It of course plays into the title and theme of the episode:
CALEB: I lay one hand on you and you're just a dead little girl.
BUFFY: Lay a hand on me. If you can.
It's a brilliant (non) fight, and also solves the 'Empty Places'
dilemma: Both sides were right (and wrong). Buffy was right about the
weapon being at the vineyard, but wrong about the tactics. Another
attack in force would only have resulted in more dead little girls.
> The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
> there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
> I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
> intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
People keep asking why The First didn't just put a bomb under the
house...
> Note on ratings: This is another example of how my ratings aren't an
> exact science, nor are they meant to be, often lumping together some
> variations in quality. "Dirty Girls" was a solid Good, with
> enthusiasm but also with reservations. "Empty Places" was more of
> a reluctant Good, slightly begrudging. This one I'm calling a high
> Good, not too far removed from Excellent. Actually, you know what?
> The hell with it, it has some flaws, but it made me a B/S fan.
> Excellent. Good job, Rebecca, you get one too.
>
>
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: Dare I say it, touching?
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
Still stunned.
Espen Schjønberg
> burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
>>> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
>>> threads.
>>>
>>>
>>> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>>> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
>> It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
>> *this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
>
> I would just say IAWTP, except the post is too kind.
Weird, but I didn't feel I was very "normal" here when I told you I
hated this episodes.
I mean, this sequence is written by nihilists.
That is the very _opposite_ kind of people than the ones that wrote the
_good_ episodes.
I suspect AOQ has done his best to give the episodes a chance by _not_
looking at the Angel-episodes in between. I hadn't either, but still
felt only as I was staring into a black hole when I watched this episodes.
--
Espen
Stephen Tempest
>
>My understanding was that Buffy wanted to charge in because she felt it
>would be a good idea, with no clear objective, in the identical manner
>to that which killed two and badly wounded two previously. No change in
>tactics, no reason for repetition, no attempt to shift the odds, just
>barrelling in without any real clue as to what they are trying to do on
>Buffy's instinct.
"So if the seal was so important to Caleb and the First, they would be
there right now. They're protecting the vineyard or something at the
vineyard. I say it's their power, and I say it's time we go in and
take it away from them."
"Look, I'm willing to talk strategy, OK, I'll hear suggestions on how
to break this down, but this is the plan. We have to be together on
this or we will fail again."
Sounds to me like she has a clear objective, she's open to a change in
tactics, she's got a good reason for trying again, and she's looking
for ways to shift the odds. Sorry, what was your problem again?
Stephen
Stephen Tempest
>In article <5dBYg.143138$1T2.132977@pd7urf2no>,
> "\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
>
>> I've said this before, but the least the group could try is to invoke the
>> "sha me en den" (or something like that) spell on Caleb to see if it would
>> work.
>
>The combo-Slayer spell has several drawbacks. One of them is that it is
>very short range. Willow, Giles and Xander all had to be close to Buffy
>when they cast it, and once cast, they were all sitting ducks. If
>anything had happened to any of them, the whole thing would have fallen
>apart.
Another is that casting it the one time seriously pissed off the First
Slayer and nearly got them all killed...
It's even possible that if they tried it again, the First Slayer would
know what was happening, and actively stop the spell from working.
More generally, the fact that we very rarely see spells being repeated
on the show suggests that this is actually one of the rules of magic
in the Buffyverse. Maybe certain spells can only be cast once by any
single individual, or only once in a five-year period, or only under a
full moon while the orange trees are in blossom...
Stephen
lili...@gmail.com
Not to mention that Spike wasn't the abusive boyfriend. Buffy was the
abusive girlfriend. I mean, if my brother came home with someone like
Buffy, who was using him the way Buffy used Spike, I'd kick her out of
the door.
Hell, my dad once dated a woman like that and when my brother found out
she came back again to take advantage of him, my brother grabbed her
bags and put them on the street to protect our dad.
Sorry, but Buffy beat up Spike too often for me to see her as a victim.
She was the stronger partner in the pairing and she used and abused
Spike, she raped him, mistreated, destroyed him emotionally and then
played the victim when all that came back at her when Spike lost
control.
I'm a Buffy fan, but s6 Buffy was NOT the victim. She was the abuser.
The fact that she was female does NOT change that.
Lore
lili...@gmail.com
David E. Milligan schreef:
I just liked that Spike was the one to end the fight and decide to
leave once he realized they didn't have a clue where Buffy was.
Lore
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
.
> Chaos reigns in the era of democracy. Or something.
Favorite line: "We're all on death's door repeatedly ringing the doorbell
like maniacal Girl Scouts trying to make quota."
> The stuff with
> everyone talking at cross-purposes does its job, especially with
> Wilow's quiet "you guys, I think we're wasting time arguing about
> how to argue," which of course no one pays attention to. Eventually
> Faith decides it's time for her to hide her uncertainty and shout
> everyone down, and it's hard to blame her for quickly lording her new
> power. It's like an example for a textbook about revolutions
> compressed into a few minutes.
There is a certain element of "same as the old boss" here, but there's
more than that. I find it interesting to watch how Faith deals with
becoming the leader. Coming in suddenly at a critical time, with even
less experience than Buffy, and having to deal with a whole army at once
instead of a gradually growing group, Faith has major disadvantages, yet
she still does at least as well as Buffy did. You can see her struggling
and sometimes guessing, but her instincts about what the group needs are
mostly sound. She puts an end to the infighting (including Kennedy's
little attempt at second-in-command status), sets some specific,
achievable goals (eg, the Bringer thing), provides direction and rebuilds
a sense of common purpose. This keeps the group together and leads to a
real (if only partial) recovery in morale. Through some combination of
natural talent, learning from Buffy's mistakes, and maybe sheer luck,
Faith proves to be a better general than Buffy ... which in the end allows
the group to fall into another trap. So it's a dubious achievement, but
still interesting. Maybe superior generalship is not the only thing the
good guys needed.
> Spike's entry looks like it could
> restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
> insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
It's disappointing that none of the Scoobies can say anything in defense
of their mutiny. IMO neither side in the big fight in EP was entirely
right or wrong, but I rather get the impression that RRK would disagree.
Spike is allowed to accuse them all of ingratitude and jealousy and
what-all without having to face a single decent comeback. But I like the
beginning, with Willow's painfully awkward speech and Spike's asking her
how long she practiced it, and the end, when Spike just drops the fight
and stalks out.
> other. The gang eventually find a 'Bringer to interrogate, with some
> nice use of Andrew, but don't learn much, and that part seems like
> the weaker link of the episode's plotting.
I always dislike the way Giles kills the Bringer so abruptly. They
couldn't just assume they had already heard everything that was worth
hearing. And isn't it common courtesy to ask "Does anyone else have any
questions for this guy before I slit his throat?"
> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war. The resulting
> conversation... well, to say the least, it's impressive. It dances
[snip]
Good points about the range and flow of this conversation, and the
quality of the acting. About the actual content of the conversation, my
feelings are rather mixed....
> Just talking from a personal standpoint, I've always been resistant
> to a B/S relationship, despite liking both characters a lot. Part of
> it was that unsouled Spike was more interesting and consistent with the
> show's mythology when he was more evil. Ergo, it was degrading to
> Buffy's character to be with him, and discounting the crazier
> "shippers," I don't think the series ever intended to let us
> forget that. It's a big part of why "Crush" and "Dead
> Things" worked. Then it took a few episodes before I adjusted to S7
> Spike as his own man. Another aspect is that I've never been a fan
> of couples that physically fight all the time, "cutely" or
> violently, nor with any semblance of using rape as a way show how much
> the misunderstood guy really cares. And through all this, I was
> feeling Angel's absence hanging over everything. Now? After
> "Touched," I think I can finally pledge my full support to the idea
> of putting these two back together... depending on what the show wants
> to do, of course.
Oh no! We can't lose Arb to the dark side now, when we're so close to the
finish! NOOOOOOO! ...
Just kidding. (Well, mostly.) So, what can we make of this big
conversation? The overview is that Buffy's self-confidence has been
shattered, and Spike's expression of devotion brings her back to herself.
That's how the actors play it, and it works well enough at this moment in
the story. Fine. But looking at what's actually said, I'm not sure how
well it supports that result, and I get some ideas about Spike that
probably are not what the Spuffy shippers see there. Let's see if I can
articulate things here....
As my starting point, I have my usual problem with the idea that Buffy has
"always cut herself off" from others. This is partly just a semantic
quibble about what "always" means here. It makes it sound like she's
always been a loner, ignoring the supremely important role that family,
friends and lovers have played in her life since season 1. I can buy
Buffy's comment as meaning that she has cut herself off from those she's
connected to at certain critical points, with the "always" meaning "it's
happened on repeated discrete occasions going back as long as she's been
the Slayer." But I don't buy it as "Buffy has always, continuously been
cut off, without a break, until just now when she's finally opening up to
someone."
Now, look at Spike's actual words. I get the same feeling as I did during
Buffy's rant in Get It Done: a lot of emotions are being vented, but not
much is actually being *said*. And what Spike does say isn't anything all
that unique. He sees Buffy's kindness and strength? She's a hell of a
woman? All this and more has been said time and time again, by Angel, by
Riley, by Giles and Xander and Joyce and probably everyone else. At first
it seemed contrived, that such simple generalities made such a difference
to Buffy. But eventually it hit me that what's happening here is not
Spike having some brilliant original insight into Buffy. No, what's
happening is that Spike show's us he's finally come to love Buffy for the
*same* things that everyone else already saw in her. No more "you belong
in the dark, with me" bullshit. He's showing her a human love, not a
vampiric one. He has *finally*, for the first time, shown that he has
become someone Buffy could at least *contemplate* loving. He still isn't
necessarily the right one for her, but now it's at least a possibility.
This is why I said I was just kidding above. Touched has shown us changes
in Spike that mean that *if* Buffy and Spike get together, I can accept
it. (Though I'm still not entirely happy with the way it was done. Too
much is put into this conversation, while not enough was done in previous
episodes. Apparently we're meant to understand that Spike has been
changing all this time, even while he seemed to be stagnant, or even
regressing into his old 'tude in LMPTM.)
And what does all this mean for Buffy? Why do Spike's words make such a
difference for Buffy? Partly it's just because he's in the right place at
the right time, and he's the only one who can speak at the moment, being
uninvolved in the recent rebellion. But I think we also have to conclude
that the Spuffy factor is at work. Buffy has had feelings for Spike for a
while now, but she never thought he was someone she could *love*, so she
was confused and conflicted. Now Spike is showing her that he's changed,
having feelings for him no longer seems so bad. Which is not to say that
she is definitely in love with him now, or that they will necessarily get
together as a couple. But just seeing that Spike's love is human love now
has lifted a weight from Buffy's shoulders, and Spike is now someone she
can take real comfort from.
Of course Spike still doesn't understand Buffy quite as well as he thinks
he does. He shows that in the beginning, with his eagerness to overthrow
Faith and put Buffy back in charge, and at the end when he tells her that
she's "the one." Neither is what she wants or needs to hear. Spike's
little joke at the end is some comfort, but Buffy still isn't reconciled
to being The One. No resolution on that issue.
And while Spike is showing his good side here, he's still frustratingly
short in the three Rs: regret, repentance, redemption. Even at this late
date, he's still mostly just ignoring his pre-soul crimes. At least he
does acknowledge that he's done things that he'd prefer Buffy didn't
imagine, but that's about it, and it's not much. (Buffy's acerbic comment
about him having trouble with the word no was a nice reminder of Seeing
Red, which Spike chooses to ignore.) This has been his habit all season:
he says he's different now, but he doesn't try to come to terms with his
vampiric past; he only rarely even expresses any regret for it (and
usually to Buffy alone). I have to wonder, is this really the way for him
to redeem himself?
Finally, a reminder: Touched is not necessarily the final word about
Buffy's issues, Spike's development, or the Spuffy relationship.
Now a few words about the rest of the episode:
> And in the meantime, Kennedy continues to try to cast herself as
> exactly perfectly what Willow needs to deal with her fear (the show
> hasn't really done all that much with the latter this season).
One problem with Kennedy here is that she *wants* to be touched, whereas
all the others *need* to be touched. It doesn't have the same resonance.
> And in the meantime, another "one more time" for the series's
> longest-running on-again off-again lovers. I was amused.
I loved the way they share the ice cream, and even the spoon, without
thought or hesitation. This is one of the sweetest moments we ever see
between them. I almost believe in their relationship more now than before
they broke up.
The three couples gettin' it on are monopolizing almost half the house.
Where is everyone else? I imagine the noise drove them all to crowd into
the basement, or onto the porch.
I loved seeing the Mayor again. One thing I didn't pick up on OFV is that
Faith may have had mixed motives in sending Xander, Willow, Anya and Dawn
to check on Buffy. The Mayor/First has just been "warning" Faith about
Buffy a few hours earlier. I'm sure Faith really wants to make sure Buffy
is okay; but I think she also wanted to use those four to sound Buffy out,
or maybe even talk her out of any Faith-stabbing plans she might have.
> Buffy going into the
> wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
> Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
> contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
> occurred to me. Well, it's a very specific situation.
Buffy is winning by changing the rules of engagement. Remember Lessons?
"If at first you don't win ... cheat." Or Principal Wood's comment in GID
that Buffy is "redefining the job." And there have been other instances
where Buffy and her friends succeed by finding a new way to approach the
problem. Maybe they could do more of that in the next couple of episodes.
I have to agree, more or less, with those who think that Faith's plan in
Touched is too similar to Buffy's in DG and EP. If the arsenal or the
mystery weapon they think might be there is so important, you'd think the
First would guard it. Why not try to find out what's there before moving
in? How do they know Caleb won't stroll in? He's already shown up at the
school, so they know he isn't tied down at the winery. And Faith doesn't
even set up a reserve force or have anyone guard their line of retreat, so
in some ways it was a *worse* plan. I know I described Faith as a better
general than Buffy above, but I was thinking of personnel leadership
rather than battlefield tactics there.
There's a *lot* of explosive in that chest.
> AOQ rating: Excellent
For me, Good, and probably a slightly lower Good than Empty Places.
--Chris
______________________________________________________________________
chrisg [at] gwu.edu On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog.
BTR1701
Rowan Hawthorn <rowan_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Kermit wrote:
> > BTR1701 wrote:
> >> In article <1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> >> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> >>> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
> >>
> >> I never much liked how Buffy just walked into someone else's home and
> >> essentially kicked him out of it. Not the sort of thing heroes do.
> >
> > I never lost much sleep over it, but yeah it is strange, particularly
> > since the town by this point was littered with vacant homes to choose from.
>
> She thought that one *was* vacant when she went in. And she didn't kick
> him out; she apparently didn't even know when he left, because she was
> still talking to him from the kitchen after he was gone.
The point is that once she saw the owner was still there, she should have
apologized and left, not continued on into the guy's kitchen and settled
in like she owned the place. It wasn't her kitchen. She could see he was
scared and her behavior basically frightened him out of his own house.
He probably didn't know what she was gonna do, whether she was some kind
of lunatic or not, and rather than be faced with the decision of having
to possibly shoot a young girl to defend himself, he left. It was a
decision he shouldn't have been forced to make.
> Her suggestion
> that he "really should leave" was in reference to the general exodus
> from Sunnydale, and, under the circumstances, was a good one; she was
> pretty much right when she told him: "It零 not your house. It零 not your
> town. Not anymore."
That's an existential philosophical argument which was irrelevant to the
guy's immediate situation. He was living there. It was his house. His
name was on the deed or the lease and she had no right to just walk in
and act like she owned the place. The decision whether to leave town or
not was his. She had no right to force that on him.
BTR1701
<mair_fheal-152E6...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> In article <VCDYg.15491$P7.7694@edtnps90>, Kermit <noe...@here.com> wrote:
>
> > BTR1701 wrote:
> > > In article <1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> > > "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> > >> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
> > >
> > > I never much liked how Buffy just walked into someone else's home and
> > > essentially kicked him out of it. Not the sort of thing heroes do.
> >
> > I never lost much sleep over it, but yeah it is strange, particularly
> > since the town by this point was littered with vacant homes to choose from.
>
> it wasnt his house anymore
>
> it was never his house
Yes, yes, we know, the whole universe will die a heat death in 18
billion years, blah, blah, blah...
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
> The problem is that while there was a great deal of difference between
> Angel and Angelus, there was very little difference between souled and
> unsouled Spike. Joss had the opportunity to really change Spike's
> character, but for whatever reason he had him continue in exactly the
> same way he was before he got his soul back. He never showed any
> remorse for any of the people he'd killed, he still had exactly the
> same attitude, he still wore the coat of the last Slayer he'd killed as
> a trophy and symbol of his manliness or whatever - he was pretty much
> exactly the same as soulless Spike. And so trying to absolve him of his
> past sins is extremely problematic, though that's clearly what Joss
> wanted.
I thought your first post on Touched mostly went too far, but here I have
to say, IAWTP(aragraph). Or maybe I don't totally agree with it, but it
definitely touched a nerve with me. I don't think they showed nearly
enough change in soulful Spike. A few episodes of insanity, an episode or
so as a prisoner, then he rapidly returns to his old macho strutting ways.
He fights on the side of good, but we see little hint that he himself has
*become* good. Having a soul seems to have made remarkably little
difference to him. Maybe there's a point there, but I've long suspected
the main reason for it was that ME was afraid to change the strutting,
snarky, leather-coat-wearing, shoulder-chip-bearing character who had been
so popular before.
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
> The point, was by the end of S5, many saw what Spike was trying to reach for
> that was not within his grasp personal-growth-wise, and willing to credit
> his good intentions, especially from "Intervention" onward.
>
> Then again, some identified with him from "Fool For Love".
>
> -- Ken from Chicago
>
> P.S. Yeah, what are the odds straight male fans of scifi might identify with
> a guy who was not the richest, famous, talented, smartest, smoothest, most
> popular guy, who couldn't the hand of his ladylove, and who still stayed at
> home? Really, what possible common ground could they have?
Sounds like you identify with William, NOT Spike....
Elisi
Considering the fact that two years after getting *his* soul, Angel was
back with Darla trying to be evil again, before moping around
pointlessly for a century, Spike is really doing rather well.
Just sayin'.
Until 'Get It Done' he was quiet and withdrawn, and - as he said in
Sleeper - he can barely live with what he's done (there are scores of
other quotes, but I don't have the time). That doesn't go away just
because we don't see him sitting around crying. In GiD Buffy demands
that he should be dangerous again - a valuable fighter - so he gets his
coat and the old 'tude back for her sake. But underneath Spike's
posturing there was always a vulnerable heart - he just got very good
at hiding it.
Also - what about Faith? She doesn't seem to have turned into a
shrinking violet, and yet no one is complaining because *she* acts
pretty much the same. Ditto Anya.
All the characters are works in progress, growing and changing and
sometimes taking a step forward, and sometimes one back. That's what
makes the show realistic and interesting.
Give Spike 100 years, *then* compare him with Angel.
Elisi
"And I was warm ... and I was loved ... and I was finished. Complete. I
don't understand about theology or dimensions, or ... any of it, really
... but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of
there. Pulled out ... by my friends. Everything here is ... hard, and
bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch ... this is
Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that ...
knowing what I've lost..."
Buffy, 'Afterlife'.
Malsperanza
Apteryx wrote:
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> > threads.
> > restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
> > insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
>
>
> >
> > AOQ rating: Excellent
>
> This is a looong way from Excellent for me. Part of that is that it is a
> continuation of the totally fake Buffy Contra Mundum storyline. Part is
> that what lifts Buffy from the Pit of Despair is the Love of a Good
> Vampire. Plenty of people like stories like that, but there are plenty
> of other TV shows to cater for them. Why did they have to bring it into
> BtVS?.
I would argue that BtVS has always made the power of love a central
force and concept in the story--starting with s1. If the guy in
question had been Angel, after 6.5 seasons of angst and separation, the
arc would have been more obvious, but it's been there all along.
~Mal
Malsperanza
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu wrote:
> burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > The problem is that while there was a great deal of difference between
> > Angel and Angelus, there was very little difference between souled and
> > unsouled Spike. Joss had the opportunity to really change Spike's
> > character, but for whatever reason he had him continue in exactly the
> > same way he was before he got his soul back. He never showed any
> > remorse for any of the people he'd killed, he still had exactly the
> > same attitude, he still wore the coat of the last Slayer he'd killed as
> > a trophy and symbol of his manliness or whatever - he was pretty much
> > exactly the same as soulless Spike. And so trying to absolve him of his
> > past sins is extremely problematic, though that's clearly what Joss
> > wanted.
>
> I thought your first post on Touched mostly went too far, but here I have
> to say, IAWTP(aragraph). Or maybe I don't totally agree with it, but it
> definitely touched a nerve with me. I don't think they showed nearly
> enough change in soulful Spike. A few episodes of insanity, an episode or
> so as a prisoner, then he rapidly returns to his old macho strutting ways.
> He fights on the side of good, but we see little hint that he himself has
> *become* good. Having a soul seems to have made remarkably little
> difference to him.
Go figure. This was one of the things I liked best about Spike's story.
I would have been bored by the idea of him getting a soul and then
getting a personality transplant & turning into a virtuous goodguy.
After all, plenty of people with souls remain ethically problematic.
And Buffy is attracted to Spike-as-he-is *because* he still has a dark
side--as does she.
~Mal
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
BTR1701 <btr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
that or read the script
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> Good lines: "Caleb, this is getting embarrassing." "Do you have
> to look like that?" "Will you concentrate?" "'Cuz it's just a
> little confusin'." "Fine. Go. Kill"
according to some of the commentaries
sarah gellar was having some real conflicts with the actress playing the first
the two of them were always fighting off and on the set
and could never get together
Malsperanza
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
snip
> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
I didn't think that was his motive, exactly. He has no interest in the
Scoobies or the Potentials, and never has had. Lately, a few of them
have even tried to kill him. He's only there as Buffy's "strong right
arm" (the quote refers to someone else, I know). So when he realizes
that they are not going to go get her, he just leaves. Not to bring her
back to challenge Faith, but just to continue to do what he's been
doing: work for her. He's done with the crew on Revello Drive.
I love the moment when he stops on the sidewalk and sniffs the air.
Whatever Buffy may feel or have felt over the past 3 years, for Spike
the connection to her has always been visceral, animal, and absolute.
> The resulting
> conversation... well, to say the least, it's impressive. It dances
> through Faith, how much of this Buffy has brought upon herself, the B/S
> arc from S6, identity as a Slayer and as a person, and makes it all
> seem like a cohesive train of thought. Buffy's so certain, such a
> convincing speechmaker, even when talking about depression and
> uncertainty. For his part, Spike says some of the wrong things (i.e.
> "connecting") and even in his monologue towards the end he can't
> always stay on topic, but Buffy does the favor of listening to the
> complete thought, and everyone's the better for it. As is so often
> the case, the actors deserve a good part of the credit for making it
> work so well, especially for the facial expressions, right down to
> Spike's "is this for real?" look that closes the scene. All in
> all, the outpouring of honest sentiment ranks among the series
> highlights. It's been quite a journey for them getting to this
> point, considering how things started, and how convincing this feels.
>
> Just talking from a personal standpoint, I've always been resistant
> to a B/S relationship, despite liking both characters a lot. Part of
> it was that unsouled Spike was more interesting and consistent with the
> show's mythology when he was more evil. Ergo, it was degrading to
> Buffy's character to be with him, and discounting the crazier
> "shippers," I don't think the series ever intended to let us
> forget that. It's a big part of why "Crush" and "Dead
> Things" worked. Then it took a few episodes before I adjusted to S7
> Spike as his own man. Another aspect is that I've never been a fan
> of couples that physically fight all the time, "cutely" or
> violently, nor with any semblance of using rape as a way show how much
> the misunderstood guy really cares.
Agreed. Though I think BTVS flirts with doing this, the show manages
not to. The scene in s6 where Buffy and Spike beat the crap out of each
other and then have sex (one can hardly say, "make love") is brutal and
grotesque--a kind of dark parody of the kind of romances where violence
is made sweet n' sexy.
> And through all this, I was
> feeling Angel's absence hanging over everything. Now? After
> "Touched," I think I can finally pledge my full support to the idea
> of putting these two back together... depending on what the show wants
> to do, of course.
>
> Good lines: "You know what? I'm still making excuses. I've always
> cut myself off"
> "You're insufferable." "Thank you. That really helped."
> "I'm not trying to cheer you up." "What are you trying to
> say?" "I don't know. I'll know when I'm done saying it"
> "When I say 'I love you,' it's not because I want you, or because
> I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you
> are"
One of those classic, trite romance lines that depends entirely on
delivery to avoid being uterly saccharine and nauseating. For me,
Gellar and Marsters have never been more on-point, but I can see that
they didn't sell every viewer as thoroughly as they sold me.
Above all, and beyond the romance aspects of this scene, Spike is the
one person who is able to remind Buffy that she is the Uberslayer not
because of what she does, but for who she is. Which (watch this space)
may just be a clue to how she might solve the problem of the First.
It's no accident that the First dresses in Its Buffy suit whenever it
is speaking to Caleb or its other henchmonsters. First!Buffy is Buffy
without the "what you are": Buffy as pure killer, pure warrior.
> "I don't wanna be the one." "I don't wanna be this good looking
> and athletic. We all have crosses to bear." [Introducing a core
> concern like that and then making it seem kinda silly without totally
> diminishing it is a skill. And the way Gellar does the short laugh
> afterward is absolutely perfect]
Good writing. Because "I don't wanna be the one" is really
unanswerable, so might as well take it lightly. After 7 years of *not*
saying this, Buffy finally loses her fortitude and admits it. Spike's
serious answer would be "I don't wanna be an undead vampire with 3,000
murdered innocents to my credit." Equally unanswerable. But the real
punchline--the thing that made me laugh out loud in the midst of a very
poignant scene, was the reference to bearing a cross. Vintage BtVS.
> Everyone's pairing up in parallel in one of those "last dance
> before Graduation Day" ways
Last night on earth. This is what I believe is known as "imminent
apocalypse sex." It's similar to break-up sex, only different.
> Buffy and Spike are unique in that
> there's no clear suggestion of clothes coming off and such.
Others may disagree, but I think it's pretty clear that no clothes come
off, and they are the one couple in Sunnydale not to be gettin' some
that night. Well, them and Caleb and First.
> In the meantime, Faith is lucky enough to have a chat with the First, who in
> its conversations with Caleb doesn't seem nearly as confident as it
> may have led the viewer to believe. The idea that its manifestations
> are, in some way, part of the people it's imitating, is always
> something I've said is important to make the premise work
sniplet
> And in the
> meantime, one more pairing in a scene matched with the others is
> between Buffy/First and Caleb, giving as close a look as we seem likely
> to ever get into how either of them operates. I'll sidestep the
> effort of trying to put it into words and just call it
> "interesting." Especially the manifestation of evil itself or
> whatever just wanting to feel something.
Agreed again. It occurs to me that one (of many) reasons I hate the
Caleb character so much is that it derails this much more interesting
idea. The incorporeal First *becomes* soulless versions of each person
It invests. Which is why I think it's so interesting that It hangs out
in Buffyflesh when It's home alone. Caleb is merely someone for It to
talk to, while It's pretending to be corporeal. Also: add Envy to It's
list of salient sins, along with Pride.
I like the way Robin/Faith, Xander/Anya's, and Willow/Kennedy's sex
scenes are played--all seem sweet, a bit lost, and very melancholy.
> I really want to know what that note said.
Despite the fact that a document seems to have been sold on eBay, I
really like the fact that we don't see the note. I much prefer to leave
that text in my own imagination. I like the idea that for once
something occurs between these two that is too private even for our
eyes. And not because it's sexeh.
> Buffy going into the
> wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
> Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
> contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
> occurred to me. Well, it's a very specific situation. This is
> energetic, and has some humor from a dark place too. We'll have to
> see what the shiny new weapon does.
I guess there's a lot of debate about whether Buffy did this
spontaneously, without a plan and/or whether her plan was any better
this time. I don't have much to contribute there, but I'll just note
that
a) she is much more successful in dealing with Caleb when she works
alone than when she is leading a platoon;
b) she is imitating the First's incorporeality in being "untouchable"
to Caleb, which is a piece of cleverness that seems to have occurred to
her the night before. What could have happened the night before to give
her this new insight into how to fight the Big Bad? Perhaps the fact
that her night with Spike was *not* all about The Body and its needs?
c) She's not trying to beat Caleb; she's conducting research on him.
What does he know, where is he hiding the thing that's hers, and how
does he fight? She's "reading" him the way Giles or Dawn would read a
book. A really evil, bad-tempered book.
~Mal
burt...@hotmail.com
> Also - what about Faith? She doesn't seem to have turned into a
> shrinking violet, and yet no one is complaining because *she* acts
> pretty much the same.
What *about* Faith? I haven't seen anyone here saying that she should
be absolved of her past sins because she's a completely different
person now.
If Joss wanted us to forgive Spike's past misdeeds on the grounds that
getting his soul back made him a completely different person, then he
should have had Spike ACT like a completely different person.
davi...@supanet.com
Clear objective: "Let's grab something that may be somewhere in the
vinyard." No idea what that something is, no idea how to destroy/remove
it, no idea whether it is something that only the bad guys can use, or
if the bad guys are simply protecting it from the good guys. No idea
whether, following the previous debacle, the bad guys have shifted it,
or upgraded defences.
She's got a good reason for trying to find out more; no more, no less.
"I say it's their power" isn't massively convincing to the listener
given the outcome of her recent decisions.
Technically, she's not willing to talk strategy, because strategy is
the overall scheme of things. That Buffy doesn't know the difference
between strategy and tactics isn't a big surprise, and is quite
reasonable. But she's not open to discussing the strategy, merely
claiming that she's open to suggestions on how to implement that
strategy. A sane leader would have at the very least given an
indication why a second attempt would fare differently, and have
already introduced a change in approach that might give a different
result. "We did it this way last time, and got a bloody nose. This
time, we're going to try it with these modifications; can anyone
improve this further?"
The obvious next course of action would have been to carry out a recon
of the vinyard in order to find out what was so important there, and
what defences might be in place. Faith's idea of grabbing a weak link
(Bringer) and interrogating, but with regard to the vinyard, might have
been appropriate.
Michael Ikeda
news:1161031999.0...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com:
>
> Apteryx wrote:
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>> > A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these
>> > review threads.
>> > compressed into a few minutes. Spike's entry looks like it
>> > could restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more
>> > posturing and insults, with people mostly accusing each other
>> > of jealousy and such.
>>
>> Spike, the voice of reason - "You sad, sad, ungrateful
>> traitors."
Not really. He's dead wrong on just about every accusation (and
probably knows it). This is pure emotion from Spike, not reason.
>>
>> >
>> > AOQ rating: Excellent
>>
>> This is a looong way from Excellent for me. Part of that is
>> that it is a continuation of the totally fake Buffy Contra
>> Mundum storyline. Part is that what lifts Buffy from the Pit of
>> Despair is the Love of a Good Vampire. Plenty of people like
>> stories like that, but there are plenty of other TV shows to
>> cater for them. Why did they have to bring it into BtVS?.
>
> I would argue that BtVS has always made the power of love a
> central force and concept in the story--starting with s1. If the
> guy in question had been Angel, after 6.5 seasons of angst and
> separation, the arc would have been more obvious, but it's been
> there all along.
>
> ~Mal
>
I'd also add that the split between Buffy and the Scoobies has been
developing for much of the season. And that isolating herself from
the Scoobies is something that Buffy has done on more than one
occasion. And it tends to end in much the same way.
(With an important difference in the dynamics of the actual
argument. In the EP argument, Buffy is the one who forces the
argument and repeatedly escalates it. The other Scoobies are
actually trying NOT to escalate the situation. In previous clashes
between Buffy and the other Scoobies both sides fed off of each
other's anger.)
--
Michael Ikeda mmi...@erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> > hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
>
> I didn't think that was his motive, exactly. He has no interest in the
> Scoobies or the Potentials, and never has had. Lately, a few of them
> have even tried to kill him. He's only there as Buffy's "strong right
that whole -traitors- bit and then trying to wind buffy up
to retake command of the house
he is very much about the power politics and not about the mission
> doing: work for her. He's done with the crew on Revello Drive.
which shows he has completely forgotten the mission
the mission is to protect the slayer line
and not build a buffy slayer library
> It's no accident that the First dresses in Its Buffy suit whenever it
another part is they were having trouble staying on budget
and they had this actress already available on contract
so whedon decided give the actress a break to show what she could do
and save alot of money in the process
Bob
>
> b) she is imitating the First's incorporeality in being "untouchable"
> to Caleb, which is a piece of cleverness that seems to have occurred to
> her the night before. What could have happened the night before to give
> her this new insight into how to fight the Big Bad?
As she says to Spike the night before, "People are always trying to
connect to me but I just… slip away." As she does when Caleb tries to
connect to her face...
John Briggs
> John Briggs wrote:
>> BTR1701 wrote:
>>
>>> In article <1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>>
>>>
>>>> The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
>>>> there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer
>>>> credit. I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem
>>>> quite intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
>>>
>>> cutting out the "previously on Buffy" lead-ins is that you never
>>> actually get to see the explosion in the next episode. It somehow
>>> accidentally got cut out along with the re-caps when they made the
>>> DVDs. So if it seems like you missed something between this episode and
>>> the next one... well, you did. Nothing to be done about it, either.
>>
>>
>> Well, you can always buy an overseas release (I've just watched it
>> on the R2 set) - it's only the R1 sets where they cut the
>> previouslies: "Because Americans don't like previouslies".
>>
>> Mind you, just to remind us that Fox are morons, they inflicted us
>> with Firefly and Roswell trailers before the warning notices on disc
>> six. Morons.
>
> They did? I didn't see any on my disc 6. Are you talking about R1 or
> R2?
Which part of "(I've just watched it on the R2 set)" are you having
difficulty with?
--
John Briggs
Malsperanza
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges wrote:
> > > Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
> > > hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
> >
> > I didn't think that was his motive, exactly. He has no interest in the
> > Scoobies or the Potentials, and never has had. Lately, a few of them
> > have even tried to kill him. He's only there as Buffy's "strong right
>
> that whole -traitors- bit and then trying to wind buffy up
> to retake command of the house
> he is very much about the power politics and not about the mission
>
> > doing: work for her. He's done with the crew on Revello Drive.
>
> which shows he has completely forgotten the mission
I never got the impression that Spike was much interested in the
mission in the first place. He wants to do good, yes, but he's not
mission-driven; he's just following Buffy's guidance.
~Mal
John Briggs
> BTR1701 wrote:
>> In article <1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
>>> there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
>>> I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
>>> intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
>>
>> Just warning you ahead of time: one of the casualties of them cutting
>> out the "previously on Buffy" lead-ins is that you never actually
>> get to see the explosion in the next episode. It somehow
>> accidentally got cut out along with the re-caps when they made the
>> DVDs.
>>
>> So if it seems like you missed something between this episode and the
>> next one... well, you did. Nothing to be done about it, either.
>
> did, and they cut it accidentally. Fox Video are morons. Oh well, I
> have it recorded.
Who says they cut it accidentally? Just because they are incompetent morons
doesn't mean they didn't do it deliberately.
--
John Briggs
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
"Malsperanza" <malsp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
buffy was off mission too
now perhaps she will remember why all those people are in dawns house
Malsperanza
Bob wrote:
> Malsperanza <malsp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > b) she is imitating the First's incorporeality in being "untouchable"
> > to Caleb, which is a piece of cleverness that seems to have occurred to
> > her the night before. What could have happened the night before to give
> > her this new insight into how to fight the Big Bad?
>
> As she says to Spike the night before, "People are always trying to
> connect to her face...
Oooh, I like this! Good catch!
~Mal
BTR1701
<mair_fheal-09E8E...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
What does the script have to do with it? Buffy walks into a guy's house
uninvited, essentially committing criminal trespass and breaking and
entering... oh, but that's okay because she tells him it's not his house
anyway.
Try doing the same thing to your next door neighbor and see how far that
argument gets you with the cops and the judge.
Mel
Kermit wrote:
> BTR1701 wrote:
>
>> In article <1160946514.8...@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Spike still has his obsessive faith (no pun intended) in Buffy, so he
>>> hunts her down to try to spark a little civil war.
>>
>>
>> I never much liked how Buffy just walked into someone else's home and
>> essentially kicked him out of it. Not the sort of thing heroes do.
>
>
> I never lost much sleep over it, but yeah it is strange, particularly
> since the town by this point was littered with vacant homes to choose from.
She said she thought it was abandoned. Considering how many people left
town, that wasn't an unreasonable assumption.
The guy split before she had a chance to leave so she stayed.
Mel
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
BTR1701 <btr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
the cops and judges were gone
Mel
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Mel wrote:
>
>>burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>>And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
>>>actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
>>>couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
>>>not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
>>>fiat FTW.
>>
>>
>>It wasn't a better plan. It was the same plan in a different location.
>
>
> Buffy's plan was to take everyone, charge right back in, and fight
> Caleb again. Faith's plan was to avoid Caleb.
>
> How is that the same?
>
Avoid Caleb? He could very easily be down there just waiting for them.
How do they know he isn't? Because they *think* he's at the vineyard?
Ur jnfa'g, bs pbhefr, ohg gurer *jrer* horeinzcf gurer. Guerr bs gurz. V
org gurl qvqa'g frr gung pbzvat rvgure.
Mel
Mel
John Briggs wrote:
Well since you mentioned both R1 and R2 in the previous sentence, I
wasn't sure which one you were talking about for the latter comment.
For all I know, you have watched R1 as well.
Mel
Arbitrar Of Quality
> Sorry, but Buffy beat up Spike too often for me to see her as a victim.
> She was the stronger partner in the pairing and she used and abused
> Spike, she raped him, mistreated, destroyed him emotionally and then
> played the victim when all that came back at her when Spike lost
> control.
>
> I'm a Buffy fan, but s6 Buffy was NOT the victim. She was the abuser.
> The fact that she was female does NOT change that.
Are we still on the "rape" thing? I think we should institute a policy
not to use that wod to refer to anything other than actual rape.
Anyway, I'd guess you're still talkig about "Gone," and as I pointed
out at length last time it came up, nothing in "Gone" constitutes rape
in any sense of the accepted definition of the word.
Buffy was certainly abusive (although not out of a desire to be), but I
think that defining her as pure abuser and Spike as pure victim is just
as bad a misrepresentation as the other way around. Their relationship
in S6 is textured and mututally destructive, and slapping labels and
dichotomies on it misses out on the nuance.
I'm also going to add that as an unsouled vampire, S6 Spike does't have
the same standing as a human, so hurting him is, by the series's
consistent mythology, not morally equivalent to hurting a human. That
doesn't mean Buffy should get a free pass any more than she would if
she tortured animals, especially since this animal can essentially feel
human pain, but he's still an evil thing. In fact, we've seen her
feelings of guilt about that, and the fact that she's the one who broke
off the relationship because she hated what it was turning her into.
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
John Briggs wrote:
> BTR1701 wrote:
> > Just warning you ahead of time: one of the casualties of them cutting
> > out the "previously on Buffy" lead-ins is that you never actually get
> > to see the explosion in the next episode. It somehow accidentally got
> > cut out along with the re-caps when they made the DVDs.
> >
> > So if it seems like you missed something between this episode and the
> > next one... well, you did. Nothing to be done about it, either.
>
> Well, you can always buy an overseas release (I've just watched it on the
> R2 set) - it's only the R1 sets where they cut the previouslies: "Because
> Americans don't like previouslies".
>
> Mind you, just to remind us that Fox are morons, they inflicted us with
> Firefly and Roswell trailers before the warning notices on disc six. Morons.
Not on my DVDs. Too bad about the missing few seconds, though, since
I'd kinda like to see them (not enough to buy the show again). And
same for all the previouslies, for that matter. So I concur on the
moron theory.
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
> It's a brilliant (non) fight, and also solves the 'Empty Places'
> dilemma: Both sides were right (and wrong). Buffy was right about the
> weapon being at the vineyard, but wrong about the tactics. Another
> attack in force would only have resulted in more dead little girls.
Hey, didn't think of it quite that way, but I like that a lot. They
were both half right...
> > The ending seems pretty _24_-ish, doesn't it? I noticed that
> > there's exactly one second left after the Executive Producer credit.
> > I'd suspect a fake bomb, except that the villains did seem quite
> > intent on getting the girls there. To be concluded...
>
> People keep asking why The First didn't just put a bomb under the
> house...
Harder to do it unnoticed? I dunno.
-AOQ
Ian Galbraith
> Ian Galbraith wrote:
>> On 15 Oct 2006 14:45:53 -0700, burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>> First, we see that the entire reason for everyone dropping Buffy as
>>> leader was so Joss could show that Spike is the only one she can count
>>> on for support, so the Spike fen could sigh happily and say "Look!
>>> Everyone in Buffy's house is an ungrateful little bitch who doesn't
>>> appreciate her, but Spike does! He's the best, most perfect man ever!"
>> Careful, your issues are showing through.
> Careful, your stupidity is showing through.
No thats just you bringing me down to your level.
>>> And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
>>> actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
>>> couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
>>> not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
>>> fiat FTW.
>> Yeah except that it was essentially the same plan.
> Except no, it wasn't. Faith's plan was to avoid Caleb - the polar
> opposite of Buffy's plan.
The strategy was similar. You're looking at the objectives, which are
different I admit.
>>> It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
>>> *this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
>> I find it hard to believe you persist in posting about something you
>> hate.
> *shrug* Maybe I just feel the need to introduce a different point of
> view into the overwhelming lovefest these review threads have become?
So you admit to being a troll.
--
You can't stop the signal
Ian Galbraith
> Ian Galbraith wrote:
>> On 15 Oct 2006 14:45:53 -0700, burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>
>>
>>> And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
>>> actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
>>> couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
>>> not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
>>> fiat FTW.
>>
>> Yeah except that it was essentially the same plan.
>>
>
> My understanding was that Buffy wanted to charge in because she felt it
> would be a good idea, with no clear objective, in the identical manner
> to that which killed two and badly wounded two previously. No change in
> tactics, no reason for repetition, no attempt to shift the odds, just
> barrelling in without any real clue as to what they are trying to do on
> Buffy's instinct.
> Faith's plan was to first isolate something from which information
> might be gained, which was done. Information from this suggested that
> there might be an armoury, provided a clear objective - go in,
> grab/destroy the weapons, get out.
The objective isn't the plan, the strategy is and the strategy was
similar.
[snip]
kenm47
Old Thought: the show changed from Billy Fordham was wrong to Billly
Fordham was right.
Some of us (me for one) did not accept that. A lot of the criticism
flows from that basic point.
Ken (Brooklyn)
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> > might be gained, which was done. Information from this suggested that
> > there might be an armoury, provided a clear objective - go in,
> > grab/destroy the weapons, get out.
>
> The objective isn't the plan, the strategy is and the strategy was
> similar.
am i the only one that thought that it might be hard to make a secret plan
based on the interrogation of a telepath
that mightve shared the entire interrogation with every other bringer
caleb angelus amy vampwillow and the mormon tabernacle choir
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> > house...
>
> Harder to do it unnoticed? I dunno.
it would require getting into the basement unnoticed
a bomb against the side of the house would be easier
but a lot less effective
Arbitrar Of Quality
> Good points about the range and flow of this conversation, and the
> quality of the acting. About the actual content of the conversation, my
> feelings are rather mixed....
> So, what can we make of this big
> conversation? The overview is that Buffy's self-confidence has been
> shattered, and Spike's expression of devotion brings her back to herself.
> That's how the actors play it, and it works well enough at this moment in
> the story. Fine. But looking at what's actually said, I'm not sure how
> well it supports that result, and I get some ideas about Spike that
> probably are not what the Spuffy shippers see there. Let's see if I can
> articulate things here....
>
> As my starting point, I have my usual problem with the idea that Buffy has
> "always cut herself off" from others. This is partly just a semantic
> quibble about what "always" means here. It makes it sound like she's
> always been a loner, ignoring the supremely important role that family,
> friends and lovers have played in her life since season 1. I can buy
> Buffy's comment as meaning that she has cut herself off from those she's
> connected to at certain critical points, with the "always" meaning "it's
> happened on repeated discrete occasions going back as long as she's been
> the Slayer." But I don't buy it as "Buffy has always, continuously been
> cut off, without a break, until just now when she's finally opening up to
> someone."
I don't think that's what's meant by it, so I'm entirely fine there.
Buffy has let people into her life, but there's also been a recurring
trend to set herself apart, especially around May, that's been going on
much longer than just S7. I don't see this as a special cure, just an
acknowledgment of the fact and refusing to make excuses for it anymore.
Hell, in the end she leaves Spike sleeping and heads off to do things
on her own.
> And what does all this mean for Buffy? Why do Spike's words make such a
> difference for Buffy? Partly it's just because he's in the right place at
> the right time, and he's the only one who can speak at the moment, being
> uninvolved in the recent rebellion. But I think we also have to conclude
> that the Spuffy factor is at work. Buffy has had feelings for Spike for a
> while now, but she never thought he was someone she could *love*, so she
> was confused and conflicted. Now Spike is showing her that he's changed,
> having feelings for him no longer seems so bad. Which is not to say that
> she is definitely in love with him now, or that they will necessarily get
> together as a couple. But just seeing that Spike's love is human love now
> has lifted a weight from Buffy's shoulders, and Spike is now someone she
> can take real comfort from.
Works for me.
> And while Spike is showing his good side here, he's still frustratingly
> short in the three Rs: regret, repentance, redemption. Even at this late
> date, he's still mostly just ignoring his pre-soul crimes. At least he
> does acknowledge that he's done things that he'd prefer Buffy didn't
> imagine, but that's about it, and it's not much. (Buffy's acerbic comment
> about him having trouble with the word no was a nice reminder of Seeing
> Red, which Spike chooses to ignore.) This has been his habit all season:
> he says he's different now, but he doesn't try to come to terms with his
> vampiric past; he only rarely even expresses any regret for it (and
> usually to Buffy alone). I have to wonder, is this really the way for him
> to redeem himself?
Some people I guess see the need for more visible agonizing. This goes
back to the never-popular discussion about to what extent someone with
free will can be held responsible for actions while unsouled or
posessed or whatever. The spectrum runs from Angel and his endless
agonizing to Xander after "The Pack" and his/others' total disavowing.
I think honestly that a big factor is that the first few episodes gave
us enough of Spike sitting around crying for anyone, and it was time to
show something else.
-AOQ
> Finally, a reminder: Touched is not necessarily the final word about
> Buffy's issues, Spike's development, or the Spuffy relationship.
>
> Now a few words about the rest of the episode:
>
> > And in the meantime, Kennedy continues to try to cast herself as
> > exactly perfectly what Willow needs to deal with her fear (the show
> > hasn't really done all that much with the latter this season).
>
> One problem with Kennedy here is that she *wants* to be touched, whereas
> all the others *need* to be touched. It doesn't have the same resonance.
>
> > And in the meantime, another "one more time" for the series's
> > longest-running on-again off-again lovers. I was amused.
>
> I loved the way they share the ice cream, and even the spoon, without
> thought or hesitation. This is one of the sweetest moments we ever see
> between them. I almost believe in their relationship more now than before
> they broke up.
>
> The three couples gettin' it on are monopolizing almost half the house.
> Where is everyone else? I imagine the noise drove them all to crowd into
> the basement, or onto the porch.
>
> I loved seeing the Mayor again. One thing I didn't pick up on OFV is that
> Faith may have had mixed motives in sending Xander, Willow, Anya and Dawn
> to check on Buffy. The Mayor/First has just been "warning" Faith about
> Buffy a few hours earlier. I'm sure Faith really wants to make sure Buffy
> is okay; but I think she also wanted to use those four to sound Buffy out,
> or maybe even talk her out of any Faith-stabbing plans she might have.
>
> > Buffy going into the
> > wolf's den alone leads to the device of having her piss off Preacher
> > Tightpants as much as possible while actively avoiding physical
> > contact, which is "obvious" and random enough that it never
> > occurred to me. Well, it's a very specific situation.
>
> Buffy is winning by changing the rules of engagement. Remember Lessons?
> "If at first you don't win ... cheat." Or Principal Wood's comment in GID
> that Buffy is "redefining the job." And there have been other instances
> where Buffy and her friends succeed by finding a new way to approach the
> problem. Maybe they could do more of that in the next couple of episodes.
>
> I have to agree, more or less, with those who think that Faith's plan in
> Touched is too similar to Buffy's in DG and EP. If the arsenal or the
> mystery weapon they think might be there is so important, you'd think the
> First would guard it. Why not try to find out what's there before moving
> in? How do they know Caleb won't stroll in? He's already shown up at the
> school, so they know he isn't tied down at the winery. And Faith doesn't
> even set up a reserve force or have anyone guard their line of retreat, so
> in some ways it was a *worse* plan. I know I described Faith as a better
> general than Buffy above, but I was thinking of personnel leadership
> rather than battlefield tactics there.
>
> There's a *lot* of explosive in that chest.
>
> > AOQ rating: Excellent
>
> For me, Good, and probably a slightly lower Good than Empty Places.
>
>
> --Chris
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> chrisg [at] gwu.edu On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog.
Arbitrar Of Quality
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu wrote:
> One problem with Kennedy here is that she *wants* to be touched, whereas
> all the others *need* to be touched. It doesn't have the same resonance.
Ah, thank you, that's exactly it. That's the big problem I was having
with that scene (well, that and the burning hatred thing, but that goes
without saying; knew there was something besides that bugging me
here)..
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
> according to some of the commentaries
> sarah gellar was having some real conflicts with the actress playing the first
> the two of them were always fighting off and on the set
> and could never get together
That could explain why it feels like there's some visual trickery
during the scenes that include both Buffy and the First. Like their
parts were filmed separately.
-AOQ
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> Buffy has let people into her life, but there's also been a recurring
> trend to set herself apart, especially around May, that's been going on
may or mae?
http://www.viewaskew.com/tv/maeday/index.html
burt...@hotmail.com
Ian Galbraith wrote:
> On 15 Oct 2006 21:29:01 -0700, burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Ian Galbraith wrote:
> >>> And even though Faith had a better plan than Buffy (better, because she
> >>> actually *had* a plan, unlike Buffy), the writers decreed that it
> >>> couldn't work because she (and everyone else) needed to be punished for
> >>> not following Buffy on her suicide mission. So, yay for Buffy. Writer
> >>> fiat FTW.
>
> >> Yeah except that it was essentially the same plan.
>
> > Except no, it wasn't. Faith's plan was to avoid Caleb - the polar
> > opposite of Buffy's plan.
>
> The strategy was similar. You're looking at the objectives, which are
> different I admit.
No, the strategy was completely different. Buffy's "strategy" was to
charge blindly right back into the vineyard with no plan and no idea
what they were looking for. Faith's strategy was to capture one of
their enemy's soldiers, get information from it, then follow that
information to a clear objective. Big difference.
> >>> It's hard to believe that a show that used to be so good could get
> >>> *this* bad. It's mind-boggling, really.
>
> >> I find it hard to believe you persist in posting about something you
> >> hate.
>
> > *shrug* Maybe I just feel the need to introduce a different point of
> > view into the overwhelming lovefest these review threads have become?
>
> So you admit to being a troll.
No, but you just admitted to being an idiot with no reading
comprehension skills.
burt...@hotmail.com
> chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu wrote:
> > And while Spike is showing his good side here, he's still frustratingly
> > short in the three Rs: regret, repentance, redemption. Even at this late
> > date, he's still mostly just ignoring his pre-soul crimes. At least he
> > does acknowledge that he's done things that he'd prefer Buffy didn't
> > imagine, but that's about it, and it's not much. (Buffy's acerbic comment
> > about him having trouble with the word no was a nice reminder of Seeing
> > Red, which Spike chooses to ignore.) This has been his habit all season:
> > he says he's different now, but he doesn't try to come to terms with his
> > vampiric past; he only rarely even expresses any regret for it (and
> > usually to Buffy alone). I have to wonder, is this really the way for him
> > to redeem himself?
>
> Some people I guess see the need for more visible agonizing. This goes
> back to the never-popular discussion about to what extent someone with
> free will can be held responsible for actions while unsouled or
> posessed or whatever. The spectrum runs from Angel and his endless
> agonizing to Xander after "The Pack" and his/others' total disavowing.
> I think honestly that a big factor is that the first few episodes gave
> us enough of Spike sitting around crying for anyone, and it was time to
> show something else.
Well the "something else" they showed us was Spike not caring one bit
about any of the people he'd killed ("I don't give a piss about your
mum.") But even so, it wasn't about visible agonizing, (for me at
least), it was about the fact that after Spike got his soul back and
got done being crazy, there was basically no change at all to his
character. If I'm supposed to hold souled Spike blameless for demon
Spike's crimes because they're completely different beings, Joss needs
to show me that they're actually, you know, completely different
beings. He didn't do that. He showed me the exact opposite.
Elisi
> Elisi wrote:
> > Also - what about Faith? She doesn't seem to have turned into a
> > shrinking violet, and yet no one is complaining because *she* acts
> > pretty much the same.
>
> What *about* Faith? I haven't seen anyone here saying that she should
> be absolved of her past sins because she's a completely different
> person now.
>
> If Joss wanted us to forgive Spike's past misdeeds on the grounds that
> getting his soul back made him a completely different person, then he
> should have had Spike ACT like a completely different person.
I don't think Spike is a completely different person. I think getting
his soul made him able to love, to feel empathy and guilt, and to be
selfless - it doesn't stop him from being a jerk if that's what he
feels like being. All the soul does is to put him on a level playing
field with humans.
People change all the time. Even vampires change. We saw great change
in Angelus: From massacaring his entire village as newly sired, to the
refined 'artist' who tormened Dru. Ditto Spike, as we saw in FFL.
Getting his soul didn't make Angel 'a different person':
"I can walk like a man, but I'm not one. I wanted to kill you tonight."
Angel, S1 ep. 7
We have by now seen a lot of people change from demon to human or
souled creature - or going evil: Darla, Anya, Angel, Spike, Willow,
Faith.
Darla and Anya are *far* better control groups than Angel. Neither
'became a different person', although they turned *human* - but both,
because of their souls, were able to love and care in a way they had
previously never imagined. That's the most fundamental thing a soul
does - enable real love. Because Spike as a soulless vampire was always
motivated by love *anyway* it makes sense that he should not come
across as totally different. The only reason Angel does is because of
time, and the fact that the soul was forced on him. I think Spike had
an easier time adjusting to the soul partly because he asked for it,
and partly because he had someone (Buffy) to guide him afterwards.
And Angel really, really isn't that far from Angelus - S2 of AtS proves
that.
As for forgiveness... that is mostly a Buffy thing. Angel never thinks
he deserves to be forgiven, and I don't think Spike does either. They
might *want* forgiveness, but that's different. The thing is, that if
Buffy decides to hold grudges, there is not one of her friends she
would be able to be around. And the same goes for them. There is a lot
of forgiveness in this season, which is one of the reasons I like it.
Anyway, about Spike. In this episode he declares his love to be
selfless. He has been there before (end S5, early S6) but the second
Buffy gave him a crumb he started pushing for more. Has he changed?
Does the soul make a difference? Is his love truly selfless? That's
what you should be looking for, not whether he walks around brooding.
Elisi
> > that or read the script
>
> What does the script have to do with it? Buffy walks into a guy's house
> uninvited, essentially committing criminal trespass and breaking and
> entering... oh, but that's okay because she tells him it's not his house
> anyway.
>
> Try doing the same thing to your next door neighbor and see how far that
> argument gets you with the cops and the judge.
MAN
Don't move. Get out of my house.
BUFFY
Hey. (takes the shotgun away from the man, sighs) I thought the place
would be empty. I was looking for a place to crash. You know, you
really should leave.
MAN
(indignant)You can't just kick me out of my own house.
BUFFY
(shrugs) Why not? It's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays.
(walks into the kitchen) This is not your house. It's not your town.
Not anymore. (opens the refrigerator) Got any Tab?
It also ties in with what Spike says later:
SPIKE
There you are. Do you realize I could just walk in here, no invite
needed? This town really is theirs now, isn't it?
The Big Bad is coming, and it's already taken over a whole town...
It is also a reference back to 'Prophecy Girl':
Willow: I'm not okay. I knew those guys. I go to that room every day.
And when I walked in there, it... it wasn't our world anymore. They
made it theirs. And they had fun. What are we gonna do?
Also - Buffy might have done the guy a favour. All alone he was a
sitting duck for any nasties. Would you have advised someone to stay in
their house if they were in the path of Katrina?
Elisi
> Well the "something else" they showed us was Spike not caring one bit
> about any of the people he'd killed ("I don't give a piss about your
> mum.")
That was *one* specific person. And it was said after Wood (whom he had
followed willingly and in good faith) had tried to murder him. So he
might have been a tad pissed off... also Nikki wasn't a victim - she
was a Slayer and could have killed him. But Spike got lucky. Compare
with Angelus' killing of Jenny: Done purely to cause pain to Giles (and
Buffy and her friends). Spike's fight with Nikki was a deathmatch
between evenly matched opponents (except Nikki was stronger). As Spike
said 'She was a Slayer, I was a vampire.' If he hadn't killed her,
something else would have. I would hold the two slayers as the least of
Spike's crimes.
> But even so, it wasn't about visible agonizing, (for me at
> least), it was about the fact that after Spike got his soul back and
> got done being crazy, there was basically no change at all to his
> character.
Well the rest of us could all see it, and so could Buffy:
BUFFY
(calls after him) Fine. Take a cell phone. That way, if I need someone
to get weepy or whaled on, I can call you.
SPIKE
(turns to Buffy) If you've got something to say-
BUFFY
Just said it. You keep holding back, you might as well walk out that
door.
SPIKE
Holding back? You're blind. I've been here, right in it-fighting,
scrapping...
BUFFY
Since you got your soul back?
SPIKE
Well, as a matter of fact, I haven't quite been relishing the kill the
way I used to.
BUFFY
You were a better fighter then.
SPIKE
I did this for you. The soul, the changes-it's what you wanted.
BUFFY
What I want is the Spike that's dangerous. The Spike that tried to kill
me when we met.
SPIKE
(angrily) Oh, you don't know how close you are to bringing him out.
BUFFY
I'm nowhere near him.
> If I'm supposed to hold souled Spike blameless for demon
> Spike's crimes because they're completely different beings, Joss needs
> to show me that they're actually, you know, completely different
> beings. He didn't do that. He showed me the exact opposite.
Like Anya? Or Darla?
alphakitten
No, what they showed us was him not caring one bit about *one* of the
people he'd killed. And right after her son had tried to kill him.
But even so, it wasn't about visible agonizing, (for me at
> least), it was about the fact that after Spike got his soul back and
> got done being crazy, there was basically no change at all to his
> character.
Right. Tried to goad Buffy into staking him so the FE couldn't use him
to hurt anyone else, no longer took pleasure in killing demons etc, but
*aside from that* there was no change whatsoever.
If only he'd taken to murdering criminals and tried to get back into
Dru's pants...
~Angel
hayes62
I think the whole point is that it's not OK. This is Buffy hitting rock
bottom before she can get herself back together in classic Whedon
fashion.
~H
hayes62
> > threads.
>
> > BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> > Season Seven, Episode 20: "Touched"
> > (or "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss")
> > Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> > Director: David Solomon
>
> .
> > Chaos reigns in the era of democracy. Or something.
>
> Favorite line: "We're all on death's door repeatedly ringing the doorbell
> like maniacal Girl Scouts trying to make quota."
>
> > The stuff with
> > everyone talking at cross-purposes does its job, especially with
> > Wilow's quiet "you guys, I think we're wasting time arguing about
> > how to argue," which of course no one pays attention to. Eventually
> > Faith decides it's time for her to hide her uncertainty and shout
> > everyone down, and it's hard to blame her for quickly lording her new
> > power. It's like an example for a textbook about revolutions
> > compressed into a few minutes.
>
> There is a certain element of "same as the old boss" here, but there's
> more than that. I find it interesting to watch how Faith deals with
> becoming the leader. Coming in suddenly at a critical time, with even
> less experience than Buffy, and having to deal with a whole army at once
> instead of a gradually growing group, Faith has major disadvantages, yet
> she still does at least as well as Buffy did. You can see her struggling
> and sometimes guessing, but her instincts about what the group needs are
> mostly sound.
I think that was true of Buffy as well when she started out in Bring it
On/Showtime/Potential. Faith can also afford to connect more with her
troops at this point than Buffy could because none of them have died on
her watch yet.
> > Spike's entry looks like it could
> > restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
> > insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
>
> It's disappointing that none of the Scoobies can say anything in defense
> of their mutiny. IMO neither side in the big fight in EP was entirely
> right or wrong, but I rather get the impression that RRK would disagree.
> Spike is allowed to accuse them all of ingratitude and jealousy and
> what-all without having to face a single decent comeback. But I like the
> beginning, with Willow's painfully awkward speech and Spike's asking her
> how long she practiced it, and the end, when Spike just drops the fight
> and stalks out.
In part the lack of comeback is the comeback. They're genuinely worried
about her and whether they did the right thing. The audience can see
that but Spike refuses to.
> Just kidding. (Well, mostly.) So, what can we make of this big
> conversation? The overview is that Buffy's self-confidence has been
> shattered, and Spike's expression of devotion brings her back to herself.
> That's how the actors play it, and it works well enough at this moment in
> the story. Fine. But looking at what's actually said, I'm not sure how
> well it supports that result, and I get some ideas about Spike that
> probably are not what the Spuffy shippers see there. Let's see if I can
> articulate things here....
>
> As my starting point, I have my usual problem with the idea that Buffy has
> "always cut herself off" from others. This is partly just a semantic
> quibble about what "always" means here. It makes it sound like she's
> always been a loner, ignoring the supremely important role that family,
> friends and lovers have played in her life since season 1. I can buy
> Buffy's comment as meaning that she has cut herself off from those she's
> connected to at certain critical points, with the "always" meaning "it's
> happened on repeated discrete occasions going back as long as she's been
> the Slayer." But I don't buy it as "Buffy has always, continuously been
> cut off, without a break, until just now when she's finally opening up to
> someone."
>
> Now, look at Spike's actual words. I get the same feeling as I did during
> Buffy's rant in Get It Done: a lot of emotions are being vented, but not
> much is actually being *said*. And what Spike does say isn't anything all
> that unique. He sees Buffy's kindness and strength? She's a hell of a
> woman? All this and more has been said time and time again, by Angel, by
> Riley, by Giles and Xander and Joyce and probably everyone else. At first
> it seemed contrived, that such simple generalities made such a difference
> to Buffy. But eventually it hit me that what's happening here is not
> Spike having some brilliant original insight into Buffy. No, what's
> happening is that Spike show's us he's finally come to love Buffy for the
> *same* things that everyone else already saw in her. No more "you belong
> in the dark, with me" bullshit. He's showing her a human love, not a
> vampiric one. He has *finally*, for the first time, shown that he has
> become someone Buffy could at least *contemplate* loving. He still isn't
> necessarily the right one for her, but now it's at least a possibility.
His mention of her kindness is new. Xander, Riley and Joyce have talked
about her strength and Angel her vulnerability (if that's what he was
getting at with all the heart holding grossness). Spike is also a
person who's borne the brunt of what she considers her most monstrous
behaviour (from the conversation with Holden) so when he says he's seen
the worst of her and still doesn't believe it defines her she has to
take that seriously.
> This is why I said I was just kidding above. Touched has shown us changes
> in Spike that mean that *if* Buffy and Spike get together, I can accept
> it. (Though I'm still not entirely happy with the way it was done. Too
> much is put into this conversation, while not enough was done in previous
> episodes. Apparently we're meant to understand that Spike has been
> changing all this time, even while he seemed to be stagnant, or even
> regressing into his old 'tude in LMPTM.)
>
> And what does all this mean for Buffy? Why do Spike's words make such a
> difference for Buffy? Partly it's just because he's in the right place at
> the right time, and he's the only one who can speak at the moment, being
> uninvolved in the recent rebellion. But I think we also have to conclude
> that the Spuffy factor is at work. Buffy has had feelings for Spike for a
> while now, but she never thought he was someone she could *love*, so she
> was confused and conflicted. Now Spike is showing her that he's changed,
> having feelings for him no longer seems so bad. Which is not to say that
> she is definitely in love with him now, or that they will necessarily get
> together as a couple. But just seeing that Spike's love is human love now
> has lifted a weight from Buffy's shoulders, and Spike is now someone she
> can take real comfort from.
See above but I think what Spike says is different enough, timely
enough and, coming from whom it does, credible enough not to have to
invoke Spuffy feelings to explain why Buffy takes his words to heart.
> Of course Spike still doesn't understand Buffy quite as well as he thinks
> he does. He shows that in the beginning, with his eagerness to overthrow
> Faith and put Buffy back in charge, and at the end when he tells her that
> she's "the one." Neither is what she wants or needs to hear. Spike's
> little joke at the end is some comfort, but Buffy still isn't reconciled
> to being The One. No resolution on that issue.
>
> And while Spike is showing his good side here, he's still frustratingly
> short in the three Rs: regret, repentance, redemption. Even at this late
> date, he's still mostly just ignoring his pre-soul crimes. At least he
> does acknowledge that he's done things that he'd prefer Buffy didn't
> imagine, but that's about it, and it's not much. (Buffy's acerbic comment
> about him having trouble with the word no was a nice reminder of Seeing
> Red, which Spike chooses to ignore.) This has been his habit all season:
> he says he's different now, but he doesn't try to come to terms with his
> vampiric past; he only rarely even expresses any regret for it (and
> usually to Buffy alone). I have to wonder, is this really the way for him
> to redeem himself?
I don't think he is is redeemed. Yet. What he has shown though is the
ability to love like a person and that's a big move forward for someone
like Spike who places so much store by romantic love. If he can do that
there's hope that he can eventually come to see things more clearly on
other fronts as well.
On those other fronts he has shown enormous regret for what he
remembers doing and feeling but his vampiric crimes were different in
intent from Angel's and his responses are different as well. Angel was
all about torturing individual victims, individual works of art.
Consistent with that when he gets his soul back he remembers every one
of their faces and the First torments him by showing him a choice
selection. Spike was more about the rush and the crunch, his own
enjoyment rather than his victims' pain. When the First torments Spike,
apart from Buffy, instead of appearing as individuals he's killed or
raped he hears an inchoate mass of accusing voices.
Angel could still face killing people in the early soul years as long
as they were bad people, Spike couldn't even bear to defend himself
adequately untill GiD. Which he then gets over by adopting something of
his old persona as a defense and trying to view acts like killing Nicki
as part of a game or girls dying as casualties of war. It allows him
to function for now but at some point he is going to have to think
about how much that old soldier's attitude is a rationalisation and how
wars always have other victims beyond the combatants. Robin being one.
Yes, Nicki would have been killed by something or somone eventually but
Spike was the reason she was killed then and her son quite
understandbly begrudges every day she could have lived a little longer.
~H
Rowan Hawthorn
>>> Faith's plan was to first isolate something from which information
>>> might be gained, which was done. Information from this suggested that
>>> there might be an armoury, provided a clear objective - go in,
>>> grab/destroy the weapons, get out.
>> The objective isn't the plan, the strategy is and the strategy was
>> similar.
>
> am i the only one that thought that it might be hard to make a secret plan
> based on the interrogation of a telepath
> that mightve shared the entire interrogation with every other bringer
> caleb angelus amy vampwillow and the mormon tabernacle choir
>
Nope.
--
Rowan Hawthorn
"Occasionally, I'm callous and strange." - Willow Rosenberg, "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer"
Malsperanza
Right. It strikes me that the ambiguity about whether Buffy did a bad
thing in hurting Spike, and about whether ensouled Spike is a new
person or not, and about whether ensouled Spike should or should not be
absolved of Evil Spike's crimes--all of that ambiguity is deliberate. I
don't see it as mere failure by Whedon or the writers to come to
conclusions and clarify the moral structure of Buffyverse. They want
the ambiguity. Because the message is: It's not altogether easy to know
when we are absolved of crimes. Humanity is not a black-and-white
thing; people with souls commit all sorts of crimes, and can be evil;
and in Buffyverse the reverse is also true. Redemption isn't a
certificate signed by the Powers; if anything, it's a lifelong process.
I think that's what makes the show interesting. It doesn't provide
neat, saccharine formulas for redemption. A soul is not a magic bullet
that corrects all errors--witness the fact that ensouled Buffy and
Giles and Willow all make pretty serious mistakes, even (in the case of
Willow and Giles) crimes. But the fact that Buffy has been both victim
and perp in her relationship with Spike doesn't mean she mustn't love
him, or can't love him, or that loving him debases her.
~Mal
Maybe the most important point is that Buffy
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
>> I thought your first post on Touched mostly went too far, but here I have
>> to say, IAWTP(aragraph). Or maybe I don't totally agree with it, but it
>> definitely touched a nerve with me. I don't think they showed nearly
>> enough change in soulful Spike. A few episodes of insanity, an episode or
>> so as a prisoner, then he rapidly returns to his old macho strutting ways.
>> He fights on the side of good, but we see little hint that he himself has
>> *become* good. Having a soul seems to have made remarkably little
>> difference to him.
>
> Go figure. This was one of the things I liked best about Spike's story.
> I would have been bored by the idea of him getting a soul and then
> getting a personality transplant & turning into a virtuous goodguy.
Why does everyone seem to assume that Spike's only two possibilities are
returning to his old persona or becoming a goody-two-shoes? Or returning
to his old persona or collapsing into a weeping, paralyzed mass of
depression? I think there was a lot of room for ME to create a new Spike,
different from William or pre-soul Spike or crazy Spike, and neither weepy
nor simplisticly virtuous, if only they had been willing to risk messing
with that popular Spike formula.
V thrff lbh pbhyq frr Fcvxr'f erghea gb uvf byq crefban, zvahf gur xvyyvat
uhznaf, nf n fbeg bs nibvqnapr zrpunavfz gb rfpncr srryvatf bs thvyg.
Gung jbhyq jevat fbzr vagrerfg bhg bs uvf erirefvba gb sbez. Ohg onfrq ba
jung jr frr va gur ynfg gjb rcf naq va frnfba svir bs gur bgure fubj, V
qba'g guvax gung'f jung ZR vagraqrq.
> After all, plenty of people with souls remain ethically problematic.
> And Buffy is attracted to Spike-as-he-is *because* he still has a dark
> side--as does she.
You say that as if Buffy's attraction to Spike is an important benefit
that we would have lost if Spike dropped his dark side. I'm not sure I
agree about its importance. But anyway, Spike could have changed without
losing all darkness.
--Chris
______________________________________________________________________
Momo
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Well the "something else" they showed us was Spike not caring one bit
> about any of the people he'd killed ("I don't give a piss about your
> mum.") But even so, it wasn't about visible agonizing, (for me at
> least), it was about the fact that after Spike got his soul back and
> got done being crazy, there was basically no change at all to his
> character. If I'm supposed to hold souled Spike blameless for demon
> Spike's crimes because they're completely different beings, Joss needs
> to show me that they're actually, you know, completely different
> beings. He didn't do that. He showed me the exact opposite.
Personally, I think you've got a false dichotomy going there. I don't
think that to absolve souled Spike for demon Spike's crimes that you've
got to believe that with his soul he's a completely different person.
He can be the same person but with one specific critical difference: a
moral compass which now points towards good instead of evil. There's
no reason to *require* an Angel/Angelus-like change in speech patterns
or a Willow/Vamp Willow change in dress. Sometimes vamping people
seems to make them act quite differently (beyond the obvious) and
sometimes it doesn't, and there's no reason to think reensoulment isn't
the same way. Also, some people don't start behaving visibly
differently until quite a bit of time has gone past.
Momo
Elisi
> Malsperanza <malsp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> I thought your first post on Touched mostly went too far, but here I have
> >> to say, IAWTP(aragraph). Or maybe I don't totally agree with it, but it
> >> definitely touched a nerve with me. I don't think they showed nearly
> >> enough change in soulful Spike. A few episodes of insanity, an episode or
> >> so as a prisoner, then he rapidly returns to his old macho strutting ways.
> >> He fights on the side of good, but we see little hint that he himself has
> >> *become* good. Having a soul seems to have made remarkably little
> >> difference to him.
> >
> > Go figure. This was one of the things I liked best about Spike's story.
> > I would have been bored by the idea of him getting a soul and then
> > getting a personality transplant & turning into a virtuous goodguy.
>
> Why does everyone seem to assume that Spike's only two possibilities are
> returning to his old persona or becoming a goody-two-shoes? Or returning
> to his old persona or collapsing into a weeping, paralyzed mass of
> depression? I think there was a lot of room for ME to create a new Spike,
> different from William or pre-soul Spike or crazy Spike, and neither weepy
> nor simplisticly virtuous, if only they had been willing to risk messing
> with that popular Spike formula.
I'm wondering why you all think that Spike has stopped evolving. He's a
work in progress - like f.ex. Anya. And Anya has not changed her
manner one iota for 1100 years. That doesn't mean she hasn't grown - it
is obvious that she has come a long, long way. But it is taking her
time to find out who she is... ditto Spike. *He* isn't sure how to
behave, *he* isn't sure what it means to be a vampire with a soul. It
took Angel 100 years, and Whistler, Buffy and Doyle to begin to work it
out. Spike's development has been fast and furious in comparison, and
he's not stopped yet.
See for me the joy of Spike is watching the journey. The slow, slow
development over 6 years is what I love. Angel (in the early seasons of
BtVS) by comparison comes across as almost painfully simplistic:
Angelus - Evil, Angel - good. There's no depth, no growth, no journey.
Which is why I like him better on his own show. :)
> V thrff lbh pbhyq frr Fcvxr'f erghea gb uvf byq crefban, zvahf gur xvyyvat
> uhznaf, nf n fbeg bs nibvqnapr zrpunavfz gb rfpncr srryvatf bs thvyg.
> Gung jbhyq jevat fbzr vagrerfg bhg bs uvf erirefvba gb sbez. Ohg onfrq ba
> jung jr frr va gur ynfg gjb rcf naq va frnfba svir bs gur bgure fubj, V
> qba'g guvax gung'f jung ZR vagraqrq.
Qvq lbh npghnyyl jngpu 'Qnzntr'?
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
>> short in the three Rs: regret, repentance, redemption. Even at this late
>> date, he's still mostly just ignoring his pre-soul crimes. At least he
>> does acknowledge that he's done things that he'd prefer Buffy didn't
>> imagine, but that's about it, and it's not much. (Buffy's acerbic comment
>> about him having trouble with the word no was a nice reminder of Seeing
>> Red, which Spike chooses to ignore.) This has been his habit all season:
>> he says he's different now, but he doesn't try to come to terms with his
>> vampiric past; he only rarely even expresses any regret for it (and
>> usually to Buffy alone). I have to wonder, is this really the way for him
>> to redeem himself?
>
> Some people I guess see the need for more visible agonizing. This goes
> back to the never-popular discussion about to what extent someone with
> free will can be held responsible for actions while unsouled or
> posessed or whatever. The spectrum runs from Angel and his endless
> agonizing to Xander after "The Pack" and his/others' total disavowing.
> I think honestly that a big factor is that the first few episodes gave
> us enough of Spike sitting around crying for anyone, and it was time to
> show something else.
I certainly agree that we couldn't keep watching the crazy Spike of
Lessons and Beneath You for a whole season. *That* certainly had to
change. But was it necessary for Spike to drift back so close to his old
pre-soul persona? If he's a changed man, if his past weighs on him at
all, there should be more sign of it than simply not killing humans
anymore. (Important though that is!) It could be interesting if this was
a sign that Spike is failing to cope successfully, or if it's just a stage
where Spike regresses in the process of developing his new ensouled
persona, but I don't think that's the way they're playing it. They just
seem to want us to accept that he's changed, without actually showing
anything beyond an occasional passing comment that he privately feels bad.
While I don't want to start that never-popular debate about responsibility
for unsouled/possessed actions (which I usually skip over), here's a quick
thought. Someone who has been possessed, like Xander in The Pack, can
disclaim responsibility for acts they did when possessed: the
responsibility for their acts lies with something additional was in them
during the possession but is gone afterwards. Likewise, an ensouled
vampire like Angel can claim to be different from their pre-soul version
because, obviously, they now have something critical that was lacking
pre-soul. But ensouled Spike, while different from his pre-soul version,
is now acting more and more like it, only without the serious crimes.
He's *reducing* the differences between his new and old selves. Can his
old pre-soul demeanor really be separated from his pre-soul actions that
easily? Or does the return of the former really hint at a lack of concern
about the latter?
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
> That was *one* specific person. And it was said after Wood (whom he had
> followed willingly and in good faith) had tried to murder him. So he
> might have been a tad pissed off... also Nikki wasn't a victim - she
> was a Slayer and could have killed him. But Spike got lucky.
Unless the kill was justified, I don't see why we shouldn't call her a
victim. Spike wasn't defending himself, he *hunted* Nikki. And in
fighting vampires, Nikki was protecting humans from the unjustified
attacks of evil creatures, so IMHO that means it was also unjustified for
one of those creatures to kill her. Ergo, she was a victim.
> Well the rest of us could all see it, and so could Buffy:
>
> BUFFY
> (calls after him) Fine. Take a cell phone. That way, if I need someone
> to get weepy or whaled on, I can call you.
>
> SPIKE
> (turns to Buffy) If you've got something to say-
>
> BUFFY
> Just said it. You keep holding back, you might as well walk out that
> door.
This reminds me of something I was pondering in Get It Done. Did they
ever actually show Spike holding back? Or did they just *tell* us in GID
that he had been? Spike didn't have any conspicuous victories in the
episodes between Showtime and GID, but I don't recall him visibly holding
back either, unless you count failing to chase the demon at the beginning
of GID. Then again, I don't have Spike's every move memorized....
Stephen Tempest
>The problem is that while there was a great deal of difference between
>Angel and Angelus, there was very little difference between souled and
>unsouled Spike. Joss had the opportunity to really change Spike's
>character, but for whatever reason he had him continue in exactly the
>same way he was before he got his soul back. He never showed any
>remorse for any of the people he'd killed, he still had exactly the
>same attitude, he still wore the coat of the last Slayer he'd killed as
>a trophy and symbol of his manliness or whatever - he was pretty much
>exactly the same as soulless Spike. And so trying to absolve him of his
>past sins is extremely problematic, though that's clearly what Joss
>wanted.
Spike's personality, as clearly established on the show, is that he's
not someone to brood around in the dark agonising about his past
crimes. He lives for the present, and always has.
As far as he's concerned, he can't change the past, he can't make
amends to the people he's already killed. What he *can* do is try his
best to stop _anybody else_ suffering the same fate in future. Not out
of any high-and-mighty concept of seeking redemption, but simply
because his newly-minted conscience tells him that's the right thing
to do.
Spike isn't Angel. He's not a deep thinker. And any attempt to make
him react the same way as Angel to his re-souling would only have
cheapened the show.
Stephen
Malsperanza
To me, the fact that Spike remains dark is key. Buffy herself has a big
chunk of Darkside in her; loving Riley didn't work because he didn't
have that and didn't understand it. (Plus he was dull as as a log and
had boring hair.) Part of the impulse to deny Spike's continued
Darkside is, I think, an impulse to see Buffy as not having any demonic
element in her. But the jury's still out on that.
Overall, I agree with you, and am not interested in reducing Spike to
an either/or state. I guess the difference is in nuances. If we start
from the premise that Spike was always anomalous--extremely evil and
amoral but retaining the ability to love, to be loyal, and to feel all
kinds of emotional attachments (including his investment in hating
Angel), then there's a kind of continuity in his personality--in the
arrogance, the joie de unvivre (loves music, loves sex, loves fried
onions), the goofiness, William-ish weakness and romanticism, the
impulsiveness, the occasional moments of pure inspired perception.
Those things existed in William, in Evil!Spike, and in Spike Royale
(Quarter-pounder with Soul). The one thing that Spike has acquired that
William didn't have is a certain pragmatism. William was a fantasist,
hoping to interest the patently uninterested Cecily by the power of
poetry. Spike has learned not to dwell on things too much.
I think having his basic personality change because of the soul would
be as much of a writerly cop-out as having his basic personality change
because he falls in love with Buffy.
Spike is who he is--a consistent character despite the hero's journey
and all its many changes. We get to what happens to Spike when he
really falls in love (s6). What changes? What doesn't? Love changes
many things in Spike's outlook and behavior--he really tries to be
worthy of Buffy and of love itself. (Eventually it pushes him to take
the next step on the hero path.) But he still has massive blind areas,
and despite his vast experience of the world, a certain naivety.
So then what happens to him when he gets his soul back. What changes?
What doesn't? His past doesn't change. His memories don't change. His
behavior changes somewhat, but less than one might expect. He still
loves fried onions and the smell of napalm in the morning. In trying to
spot how the soul does change him, we get a glimpse of what a soul
*is*. It's an empirical lab experiment in isolating what the nature and
function of the soul is.
We get a reverse version of this with the Mayor, but in a much more
limited experiment. When the Mayor sells his soul, what remains? Lots
of human foibles--phoniness, glibness, greed-- *and* sincere love for
Faith.
The conclusion I draw is that in Buffyverse love is a core human
attribute, which exists with or without a soul. What a soul brings to a
person is empathy: the ability to care about what happens to other
people and to the world as a consequence of one's own actions.
~Mal
Stephen Tempest
>The point is that once she saw the owner was still there, she should have
>apologized and left, not continued on into the guy's kitchen and settled
>in like she owned the place. It wasn't her kitchen. She could see he was
>scared and her behavior basically frightened him out of his own house.
Very true. The legally correct thing for her to do was indeed to leave
him to stay in his own house, until he is eaten alive by the army of
Übervamps that's about to come boiling out of the Hellmouth.
Stephen
chr...@removethistoreply.gwu.edu
>> Why does everyone seem to assume that Spike's only two possibilities are
>> returning to his old persona or becoming a goody-two-shoes? Or returning
>> to his old persona or collapsing into a weeping, paralyzed mass of
>> depression? I think there was a lot of room for ME to create a new Spike,
>> different from William or pre-soul Spike or crazy Spike, and neither weepy
>> nor simplisticly virtuous, if only they had been willing to risk messing
>> with that popular Spike formula.
>
> I'm wondering why you all think that Spike has stopped evolving.
I for one do not think that Spike has stopped evolving. But we are
talking about the way Spike is *now*, circa Touched.
>> V thrff lbh pbhyq frr Fcvxr'f erghea gb uvf byq crefban, zvahf gur xvyyvat
>> uhznaf, nf n fbeg bs nibvqnapr zrpunavfz gb rfpncr srryvatf bs thvyg.
>> Gung jbhyq jevat fbzr vagrerfg bhg bs uvf erirefvba gb sbez. Ohg onfrq ba
>> jung jr frr va gur ynfg gjb rcf naq va frnfba svir bs gur bgure fubj, V
>> qba'g guvax gung'f jung ZR vagraqrq.
>
> Qvq lbh npghnyyl jngpu 'Qnzntr'?
Lrf, npghnyyl, V unir. Jul qb lbh nfx? Vs lbh'er guvaxvat nobhg gung
abgbevbhf svany pbairefngvba, V nyjnlf gubhtug gung gur vqrn gung Natryhf
jnf vagb uhegvat crbcyr juvyr Fcvxr jnf "bayl" vagb gur guevyy bs onggyr
pbagenqvpgf obgu frevrf' cerivbhf pnaba naq zlgubf, zneevat na bgurejvfr
svar rcvfbqr.
Rowan Hawthorn
<snicker>
Malsperanza
Faith's role in these scenes is done very well. True to form, she steps
up to the challenge, and true to form, she does what she thinks Buffy
would have done.
> > > Spike's entry looks like it could
> > > restore sanity, but quickly degenerates into still more posturing and
> > > insults, with people mostly accusing each other of jealousy and such.
> >
> > It's disappointing that none of the Scoobies can say anything in defense
> > of their mutiny. IMO neither side in the big fight in EP was entirely
> > right or wrong, but I rather get the impression that RRK would disagree.
> > Spike is allowed to accuse them all of ingratitude and jealousy and
> > what-all without having to face a single decent comeback. But I like the
> > beginning, with Willow's painfully awkward speech and Spike's asking her
> > how long she practiced it, and the end, when Spike just drops the fight
> > and stalks out.
> In part the lack of comeback is the comeback. They're genuinely worried
> about her and whether they did the right thing. The audience can see
> that but Spike refuses to.
Both these perspectives make sense to me. Am I allowed to agree with
both of you? ;-)
I do think the scene is presented so that the audience is invited to
side with Spike here. His is the voice of righteous indignation. Willow
might have answered: "Spike, you weren't here; how dare you judge us?"
But she didn't have that same sense of righteousness.
> > So, what can we make of this big
> > conversation? The overview is that Buffy's self-confidence has been
> > shattered, and Spike's expression of devotion brings her back to herself.
> > That's how the actors play it, and it works well enough at this moment in
> > the story. Fine. But looking at what's actually said, I'm not sure how
> > well it supports that result, and I get some ideas about Spike that
> > probably are not what the Spuffy shippers see there. Let's see if I can
> > articulate things here....
> >
> > As my starting point, I have my usual problem with the idea that Buffy has
> > "always cut herself off" from others.
I don't think Buffy is very accurate about herself, but she is speaking
of her own feelings and perceptions. The feeling of being cut off from
human emotions and from other people has been with her since she came
back from death in s6. Some of it is classic symptoms of depression
(not only feeing cut off, but feeling that one has *always* been cut
off). Some of it may be the demonic/Darkside element in her asserting
itself. (The demonic element that was always in her as an inheritence
of being the Slayer, or that was attached to her when she "came back
wrong" in s6.) If there is some grain of the Darkside in her, then
perhaps this sense of defeat and hopelessness is the influence of the
First at work.
In any case, Spike's speech addresses not the reality but the feelings.
The other key thing that Spike says is "It's not about me at all; it's
about you. I love what you are." In other words, Spike loves her
because she is worthy of being loved. In fact, she's so worthy that he
went to the ends of the earth and suffered all the tortures of the
damned to be able to love her as she deserved. It's not an affirmation
of *Spike's* achievement; it's an affirmation of *Buffy's,* spoken by
the one person she's likely to believe. If anyone else said that to
her, she'd just respond, "Yeah, yeah, I know." When Spike says it, she
hears it--not because she's in Lurve, but because he has earned the
role of truthsayer now. He's not speaking out of his own perspective or
his own motives, he's just telling her something simple and extremely
powerful about herself: that she is good.
> > This is why I said I was just kidding above. Touched has shown us changes
> > in Spike that mean that *if* Buffy and Spike get together, I can accept
> > it. (Though I'm still not entirely happy with the way it was done. Too
> > much is put into this conversation, while not enough was done in previous
> > episodes. Apparently we're meant to understand that Spike has been
> > changing all this time, even while he seemed to be stagnant, or even
> > regressing into his old 'tude in LMPTM.)
> >
> > And what does all this mean for Buffy? Why do Spike's words make such a
> > difference for Buffy? Partly it's just because he's in the right place at
> > the right time, and he's the only one who can speak at the moment, being
> > uninvolved in the recent rebellion. But I think we also have to conclude
> > that the Spuffy factor is at work. Buffy has had feelings for Spike for a
> > while now, but she never thought he was someone she could *love*, so she
> > was confused and conflicted. Now Spike is showing her that he's changed,
> > having feelings for him no longer seems so bad. Which is not to say that
> > she is definitely in love with him now, or that they will necessarily get
> > together as a couple. But just seeing that Spike's love is human love now
> > has lifted a weight from Buffy's shoulders, and Spike is now someone she
> > can take real comfort from.
>
> See above but I think what Spike says is different enough, timely
> enough and, coming from whom it does, credible enough not to have to
> invoke Spuffy feelings to explain why Buffy takes his words to heart.
Or, to put it another way: Spuffy factor is the lurve factor. I think
two things happen in this scene, and in the night that follows: Spike
restores to Buffy her belief in her own capacity to love and her own
worthiness to be loved. And they both affirm that they are capable of
"connecting" with each other--which means, in this case, physical
contact, but not driven by sexual desire. The act of sleeping together
in each other's arms is a cute Spuffy moment, sure, guaranteed to
please shippers and irritate the unshippers. But it's also a
reaffirmation of the power of being corporeal, real, alive. Which is
what human love can do that angelic love cannot.
Those two things are what Buffy takes with her the next morning when
she goes alone to confront Caleb. Like so many important moments in
BTVS, it's all about The Body. (And if there's one lesson that vampires
can teach humans, it's to respect the power and importance of the
body.)
> > Of course Spike still doesn't understand Buffy quite as well as he thinks
> > he does. He shows that in the beginning, with his eagerness to overthrow
> > Faith and put Buffy back in charge
He's as impulsive as ever.
> >, and at the end when he tells her that
> > she's "the one." Neither is what she wants or needs to hear.
I think she does need to hear that she's "the one"--but from the right
person. Hearing it from Quentin Travers or Giles would offend her.
Hearing it from Willow and Xander would isolate her. Hearing it from
Spike restores the value of being The One to her.
> > Spike's
> > little joke at the end is some comfort, but Buffy still isn't reconciled
> > to being The One. No resolution on that issue.
Agreed. She remains torn between wanting to be a real girl and
remaining willing to be a hero.
> > And while Spike is showing his good side here, he's still frustratingly
> > short in the three Rs: regret, repentance, redemption. Even at this late
> > date, he's still mostly just ignoring his pre-soul crimes. At least he
> > does acknowledge that he's done things that he'd prefer Buffy didn't
> > imagine, but that's about it, and it's not much. (Buffy's acerbic comment
> > about him having trouble with the word no was a nice reminder of Seeing
> > Red, which Spike chooses to ignore.) This has been his habit all season:
> > he says he's different now, but he doesn't try to come to terms with his
> > vampiric past; he only rarely even expresses any regret for it (and
> > usually to Buffy alone). I have to wonder, is this really the way for him
> > to redeem himself?
> I don't think he is is redeemed. Yet. What he has shown though is the
> ability to love like a person and that's a big move forward for someone
> like Spike who places so much store by romantic love. If he can do that
> there's hope that he can eventually come to see things more clearly on
> other fronts as well.
The question of his capacity for empathy and selflessness remains. So
far he's still making all his biggest strides on the path to humanness
for one purpose alone: for Buffy. He hasn't yet shown that he can or
wants to do good on behalf of the world in general, or people he
doesn't like, or people he doesn't even know. Some part of
him--probably a big part of him--still aims only to get through this
crisis so that he and Buffy can go do Cancun and check into a room for
a couple of months. As mariposas says, he's not exactly
mission-oriented.
> On those other fronts he has shown enormous regret for what he
> remembers doing and feeling but his vampiric crimes were different in
> intent from Angel's and his responses are different as well. Angel was
> all about torturing individual victims, individual works of art.
> Consistent with that when he gets his soul back he remembers every one
> of their faces and the First torments him by showing him a choice
> selection. Spike was more about the rush and the crunch, his own
> enjoyment rather than his victims' pain. When the First torments Spike,
> apart from Buffy, instead of appearing as individuals he's killed or
> raped he hears an inchoate mass of accusing voices.
>
> Angel could still face killing people in the early soul years as long
> as they were bad people, Spike couldn't even bear to defend himself
> adequately untill GiD. Which he then gets over by adopting something of
> his old persona as a defense and trying to view acts like killing Nicki
> as part of a game or girls dying as casualties of war. It allows him
> to function for now but at some point he is going to have to think
> about how much that old soldier's attitude is a rationalisation and how
> wars always have other victims beyond the combatants. Robin being one.
> Yes, Nicki would have been killed by something or somone eventually but
> Spike was the reason she was killed then and her son quite
> understandably begrudges every day she could have lived a little longer.
Nice comparison, thanks.
~Mal