Buffy S2 “School Hard”

17 Aug 2010 2 Comments

by Jonathan Thompson in Project Buffy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Quotes of the Episode:
Spike: “I fed off a flower person, and I spent the next six hours watching my hand move.”

Joyce: “You get the hell away from my daughter!”

ENTER Spike and Drusilla! What an exciting episode this is! (Boy, did Joss get a lot of mileage from Spike.)

With the advent of Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau), the vampire quadrumvirate is complete! While we don’t know it yet, the entourage consists of Darla, Angel, Drusilla, and Spike. Some of my favorite Buffy and Angel episodes deal with back stories about the four of them.

Spike rolls in as a badass rocker vampire, with bleach-blonde hair, a sexy accent, and intense aggression. But his hostile demeanor suddenly fades when the white-clad and dainty (seemingly so) Drusilla enters the picture. Spike fades from vamp-face and he speaks so attentively and lovingly to her. But these two characters are such villains. Spike is crass and rash, playing by his rules, and Dru is creepy and chilling (Juliet Landau is perfect as Drusilla!) Spike’s name comes from his use of railroad spikes in his killings, and he’s killed the past two Slayers. We don’t know much about Drusilla yet, but we already know she can be merciless, as she devours Sheila (Alexandra Johnes) in full view of her dolls. Even at the end of the episode, after Spike decides to stop playing nice with the Anointed One, he cages the child and lets the sunlight kill him. Spike’s now in charge, with Drusilla at his side.

This episode also shines some light on the relationship between Buffy and her mother. Buffy’s worried that her mother won’t be happy with what she hears at Parent/Teacher Night, and Joyce tells her that she doesn’t want to be disappointed with her again. It was very frank of her to say, and I think it’s clear that Buffy never wanted to hurt or disappoint her mother back in L.A. Once the dreaded night arrives, Willow helps Buffy by leading Joyce around the school, away from Principal Synder, but their paths finally cross, and he leads her to his office to have what promises to be a stern talk. Joyce seems very upset with Buffy, but then vampires attack. Buffy, as the Slayer, takes charge, and herds people to shelter and barks orders to the civilians to stay put, something which Principal Synder doesn’t enjoy hearing. But seeing Buffy act with such strength and confidence, Joyce reassesses how she thought of Buffy. She trusts Buffy with her life, which is the most profound kind of trust. Though, against Buffy’s wishes, Joyce sticks around a little bit and actually saves Buffy from Spike. I had completely forgotten this happened, and I was very excited to see how brave and strong Joyce is. As the two walk home after the ordeal, Joyce talks about how much peace of mind it gives her to know that Buffy can take care of herself and handle a crisis with such selflessness. While Buffy can’t tell her mom she’s the Slayer, she’s glad to know that her mother can see a little bit into her real self.

The last thing to address is Principal Snyder. After the ordeal, he’s speaking with a police officer about what to tell the papers had happened. The officer asks if he wants to go with “the usual story” of gang-related trouble, and Snyder replies, “What do you have in mind, the truth?” Then the officer decides to go with “gang-related PCP”. This brief scene shows us that not only does at least one police officer (possibly others) know that there are vampires, but so does Principal Snyder. This deserves one, maybe two, raised eyebrows. We’ll have to keep our eyes on that one.

Buffy S1 “Angel”

19 Jul 2010 4 Comments

by Jonathan Thompson in Project Buffy Tags: , , , , , ,

Quotes of the Episode:
Joyce: “It’s a little late for tutoring.”

Willow: “No speaking up. That way leads to madness and sweaty palms.”

 

Wow, in hindsight, this episode is intense. I’m sure it’s less intense when you’re watching the Buffy series for the first time, but after watching Buffy and Angel, this episode really shook me.

This episode starts in the Master’s lair. The Master is treating the Anointed child as an adopted child — teaching him the ways of a family. The Master’s family, though, is a very twisted one, and the child is not child-like at all, which is unsettling. The plot continues as the Master sets “The Three” to kill the Slayer.

“The Three” are armored vampires, and they sneak up and attack Buffy as she’s headed home. Luckily, Angel had been watching, and he helps her; they escape and run to Buffy’s house. Enter sexual tension. Angel’s hurt and Buffy nurses his wound. They head upstairs and he stays the night. She feels very safe with him (though — and I’ll only say this once…hopefully — he does exude some Twilight/Edward vibes, he does actually have a personality and is a deep character). The next night, she comes home and they talk again. He expresses that he likes her, and they begin kissing; the kissing is very intense, but then he pulls away quickly — and we see him in Vamp Face. Angel is a vampire!

Joss has mentioned in a commentary that he was surprised that many viewers didn’t see that Angel was a vampire. I, myself, already knew about the Angel spin-off series and knew that he was a vampire, so I do wonder what it would have been like to watch it without that knowledge. Though, before this episode, we had absolutely no knowledge about him as a character — so there wasn’t too much to go off of. This episode is all about him; this is the episode that opens up so many backstories. It’s exciting to watch it with all the knowledge I have now.

There is a lot of conflict in this episode. Buffy, apparently, loves Angel, but she has to kill him. Angel is a vampire, but doesn’t want to feed. He cares for Buffy but wants to kill her. There are a lot of feelings going around. It’s a little too explosive, because if Angel had only told her that Darla bit her mom and not him, things would’ve been a little easier, or if he had told her about the curse earlier, she wouldn’t have had to plan on killing him. That being said, their conflicts are pretty much rested by the end of the episode, not resolved, just rested for now.

What made this episode extremely intense for me is Darla’s death. In the episode, we learn that Darla sired Angel. They lived a few generations together, and Darla expressed her jealousy that the one she loves was in love with another. From the information learned in this episode alone, Angel’s killing Darla isn’t all that profound, but after watching Buffy and Angel, this moment is poignant. I didn’t remember how her death happened exactly, so I was very surprised when Angel dusted Darla. I actually gasped out loud, because I knew all the stuff that was going on in Angel’s head — the stuff that the viewers would only learn much later.

The episode ends with the Master, mourning the loss of his favorite disciple, Darla. As he laments her loss, the Anointed child then takes the role of the adult, and encourages the Master with the plan of killing the Slayer and the traitorous Angel. Then they walk back into the darkness, pleased with the thought.


Buffy S1 “Welcome to the Hellmouth”

03 Jul 2010 4 Comments

by Jonathan Thompson in Project Buffy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Quote of the Episode:
Buffy: “So, you like to party with the students. Isn’t that kinda skanky?” 

I’m very excited to begin Project Buffy! I finished S5 of Angel last night (but I’ll get to that way later), and now I can start an episode by episode commentary through the entire series. I’m hoping that Buffy fans and passersby both can stop by and let me know what you all like about the episode, the characters, the writing, what you all don’t like, anything! I want you all to start discussions, disagree with me, agree with me, let me know who your favorite character is, anything and everything. I want to create a space for readers to congregate and talk about movies and TV! And if you’re a newbie to the Buffy world, please feel free to comment as you journey through the series episode by episode!!

So let’s begin.
I’ve seen the pilot episode of Buffy four times now. I must admit that the first time I saw it, I was somehow unimpressed and I didn’t continue watching past it. I think about a year later, I watched it again, and I thought it was brilliant, and I ended up continuing and watching the entire series. I then watched it again to celebrate Joss Whedon’s birthday, and I watched it again today.

I love that the entire series starts off with Darla (Julie Benz) on the hunt. From the way it’s shot and from the way Darla acts at the beginning, we think that the guy is the dangerous one, but boy are we wrong!

The first half of the episode or so is pretty much just an introduction to this world and to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar). It’s all pretty much fun and games, as we meet the nerdy Willow (Alyson Hannigan), the funny and popular Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), the girl-crazy Xander (Nicholas Brendon), and the, at first, creepy librarian Mr. Giles (Anthony Stewart Head). There’s even a hint of levity as Buffy’s mom, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland), tells her “not to get kicked out” of school on her first day. Though, there is a point where it’s made clear that, while there will be plenty of witty banter and funny situations, there will definitely be some deeper threads running underneath. As Buffy and Mr. Giles talk in the library about his being a Watcher who’s supposed to train her, she retorts back asking if he’s supposed to prepare her “for getting kicked out of school, for losing all of her friends, for having to spend all of [her] time fighting for [her] life and never getting to tell anybody because [she] might endanger them.” There’s definitely more to slaying vampires than meets the eye!

Though, it looks like Buffy’s wish for friends to know about her vampire slaying comes true when Xander, who was probably in the library (“where the books live!”) for the second time in his high school career, overheard the mystical conversation between Buffy and Giles. And then Willow gets kidnapped by a vampire. So that kind of worked out for Buffy, sort of.

But before the climax of the episode, some brooding and handsome stranger follows Buffy. We don’t get a name yet, but he introduces the evil plan of the season: The Harvest. Buffy *really* doesn’t like him, which is hysterically ironic in hindsight.

Once Willow’s taken away from the Bronze, we see Buffy in action for the first time. She’s cool and collected — and she’s super strong. She’s so strong that it makes Darla, who’s been pretty much in control of her surroundings the entire episode (and probably for decades now), incredibly scared. Buffy’s got game. She already dusts one vampire, but Joss ends this first episode on a cliffhanger as Luke (Brian Thompson) tries to take Buffy out.

This first episode does a good job introducing this world of vampires. It shows us how vampires look exactly like humans until they transform into their vampire forms. It’s even interesting that it’s set in Sunnydale outside of Los Angeles, out in the suburbs — where Giles hints at the idea that it has a mystical magnetism for the fantastical. Buffy’s clever, strong, and kind — to hang out with the “lowly” Willow and Xander over the popular Cordelia. And with the climactic “To be Continued” at the end, we’re definitely wanting to see more.

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