302 (Dead Man's Party) - Some New Points, Possibly
halcombe
old eps.
3/02 was (and still is) one of my least favourite eps of the season;
and, perhaps because of that (and consequent liberal use of the FF
button), there are some points that seem to have passed me by.
1 Pat
Her scenes always previously zapped on the ground of boredom, but, now
I see, far from being devoid of interest.
That kiss on the mouth with Joyce, for instance. I suppose, seeing
Joyce tilt her head, I thought she was offering her cheek for a
standard female peck. But, clearly, looking at it properly, there was
only just enough movement to ensure their noses didn't bump.
Definitely a kiss on the mouth.
And Pat's lingering look in Joyce's direction as she takes a gulp of
schnapps seems to me to indicate nothing less than rampant 'down low
tickle'.
Wow! A human, after 30-odd eps, has finally realised just how gorgeous
Joyce is - the pretty face and great bod only for starters. Pity it
had to be the ultra-creepy, physically (and in every other way)
unappetising Pat. (Now, an interlude with Jenny Calendar, on the other
hand, would have been more than welcome.....)
The sapphic angle was flagged at the time, in this NG and, no doubt,
elsewhere. But, in fact, Pat's real creepiness is in her scenes with
Buffy.
Three seconds after meeting in Joyce's front yard, she volunteers
'aren't you a picture?' It sounds like something a stranger would only
say of girl under 6 years old (if that)! (And to her mother, not to
the girl.)
Then, 'I'm sure she mentioned me' - yeah, right.... - alludes to her
summer 'vacation', and tells her that she and Joyce '....need to
rebond'.
A badly trained alien or badly programmed robot, yes - but surely not
an American woman of 30 years of adult social experience. (Unless that
experience were in a mental institution......)
And then she comes back, having invited herself to the
(soon-to-be-formerly) intimate dinner-party, to the kiss (as above)
and general, unexplained pallyness with Joyce.
(Quite what Joyce is thinking about all this isn't clear. She'd have
needed support during the summer - and, since she and Giles have
singularly failed to behave like adults, sink their differences and
console one another, as might (for a variety of reasons) have been
hoped - Pat's ample bosom would be as good a place to find support as
any.
[And, on the subject of support, do we know whether Joyce's parents
(or in-laws) are still alive? Or where they live? Has Buffy ever
referred to grandparents? And what about Arlene, or Darlene?]
Killing two birds with one stone, one might suppose Joyce has some
sort of crush on Pat, sufficient to shut down the parts of her brain
dealing with rational thought: because that's the only thing that
explains why she allows her house suddenly to be commandeered as Party
Central without a whimper of objection!)
2 The Basement
The only time we see it, I think. Numerous questions arise.
Who stores their best china in a basement? Or dries their clothes
there? Or has a bookcase used as such there? Or who stores china on
top shelf? Why the piddling '1 step' steps? (Even Joyce would be
lifting the china from well above her head - one false move.....)
When was the photo taken? Very intimate (in a platonic way) - Xander
(looking lovesick) with his head in (a beaming) Buffy's lap, his hand
by her foot (?), her arm round his shoulder. Willow (also beaming)
close behind Buffy, their cheeks almost touching (though the effect
could be perspective). Who took the pic?
(I spit blood that we (or is it just, I?) never got to see that scene,
or any other with a similar degree of warm, easy companionship,
especially between Buffy and Willow.)
Why doesn't Joyce ask how a cat could have died on top of the
bookcase? Clearly, it must have got there some time after Buffy and
Joyce moved in. How long had the cat been dead? (They don't use their
'company plates', apparently, so it could have been dead quite some
time.) On the other hand, wouldn't it have stunk to high heaven? Since
the basement is also the laundry room, Joyce would be sure to have
noticed.
3 The B/W Showdown
I had, without really giving the matter much thought, put down
Willow's coldness to Buffy to an extreme aversion to 'scenes' - that,
after all, is the reason/pretence for invading the Summers residence,
rather than supping intimately.
[Why is the table set for six? Even without crasher Pat, I make the
company seven (B/W/G/J/X/C/O)]
Looking carefully, that's clearly not the reason for Willow's
behaviour (and I'm only the zillionth to see it, apparently).
In the downstairs scenes, Willow is hard as nails. (AH goes through a
lengthy vocabulary list in the body language of shutting conversations
down.)
That her 'I can't hear' gestures are an act is confirmed by Willow's
look, as Buffy takes her arm to lead her to somewhere a little quieter
- a "Oh God, here we go!" look (at no one in particular), accompanied
by a dismissive head-dip: she is clearly acknowledging that she's been
avoiding Buffy, that she thinks whole Buffy 'thing' is a drag,
etc.....
When accused of 'Avoiding [Buffy] in the one-on-one sense', Willow
looks very shifty. She takes a beat before replying, opening her eyes
mechanically, expressing synthetic surprise.
Her 'That's why.....with the party....'cause we're glad you're back'
isn't the usual charming Willowese: she just can't be bothered to form
a proper sentence! Then we get a head-lowering gesture (combined with
strange sideways movement of jaw) as if to say 'That's all the
explanation you're getting: be satisfied' - this isn't Willow being
shy and gauche; this is her cutting Buffy off at the knees.
Willow says 'OK, good' as to a troublesome customer who's not worth
the bother of doing business with. She's certainly not sounding as if
she's talking to her 'best friend' - she raises her eyebrows, does the
pout that she does in 3/11 after "So that's sort of like taking an
interest.". She walks away with raised eyebrows, and obviously false
half-smile.
Buffy's face falls like a little kid's.
Then, upstairs......
Why does Willow come upstairs in the first place? Before she sees that
Buffy is packing (clumsily thrown focus there), her face has a pretty
grim expression. It doesn't look as if she's repented her previous
coldness: she's neither ready to kiss and make up, or to give Buffy a
bollocking.
I like the scene for AH's performance - you have to be a pretty hard
bastard not to tear up at '....and I didn't have anyone to talk to
about this scary life stuff' with (to (shamelessly) quote Bogart in
'Maltese Falcon') the great 'sob...in [her] voice' that AH can do so
well.
But hate it because it opens up the whole area of the B/W relationship
for discussion - and then promptly cuts off said discussion by having
Joyce come in. (The scene is also right royally buggered about with by
the crass cross-cutting with Giles - but that's another story.) And
this essential relationship is left once more to go unexamined.
Compare the S2/3 summer with S1/2 - then, Buffy leaves Sunnydale in
good shape (both she and it) for a holiday with Hank. And, according
to 2/01, sends a couple of postcards to Willow, already supposedly
installed as 'best friend' - or 'best girlfriend', at least. [I leave
to one side the question, How can both Buffy and Xander be Willow's
'best friend.]
(Did Willow write? Did Buffy give her her Dad's address? Or phone
number? (Because Buffy must have left her number with Giles in case
the vamps had got frisky - and why Giles and not 'best friend'
Willow?))
If they had really been close, Buffy would surely have invited her to
stay for couple of weeks (to show her the big city, show off her Dad
(whom she still idolised at that point) and have some twosome time
without slayer responsibilities.)
We rarely see even the briefest allusions to Willow and Buffy doing
ordinary friend stuff (except study sessions usually blown off by
Buffy). Let alone the sort of intimacy that Willow clearly craves.
I don't object in principle to there being a 'credibility gap' as far
as the B/W friendship is concerned. (Nothing like a nice bit of irony
to stoke the dramatic fires.) It's just that a real, consistent
'best-friendship' would have been equally, if not more, credible, and
returned more WAFF, that the one we are shown, with long tracts of
indifference, punctuated by episodes of 'telling, not showing' that
they are indeed 'best friends' (eg, in 3/05, when Buffy is twisting
Willow's arm to let her 'have 15 minutes alone with Cordelia's
database').
I had always assumed that this coolness arose from the same
pathological terror of suggestions of sapphism that made ME nix W/T
onscreen tonsil-hockey for such an age.
But, realising for the first time that the Mutants had allowed Joyce
what viewers might well have thought was a tongue sandwich with
'Sister George', I'm left to put it down to sheer Mutant
bloodymindedness.
Evan "JabberWokky" E.
> The only time we see it, I think. Numerous questions arise.
I'm thinking it's shown at least a few more times, although the only
time that springs to mind is in Bewitched, Bewildered and Bothered (hope I
got that order right), when Xander and Cordelia flee to the basement to
evade the rampaging mob of femininity. In fact, I'm pretty sure they cower
in the same corner.
Oh, and when they go over to Buffy's house, and the bug guy assassain
attacks them, they flee to the basement and duct tape the crack under the
door. (What's My Line - 1 or 2 or both).
--
Evan "JabberWokky" E. jw...@timewarp.org
"I think it's a mandate: Don't give people what they want, give them what
they need. [...] People want the easy path, a happy resolution, but in the
end, they're more interested in... No one's going to go see the story of
Othello going to get a peaceful divorce. People want the tragedy. They
need things to go wrong, they need the tension. " -- Joss Whedon