“Bad Girls”

Okay, so things just got good, or bad, depending on your take.  Buffy delves back into the moral quandary pool, only this time Buffy herself is the one toeing the line.

As I’ve mentioned in at least one other previous blog, the slayer’s job is to kill, therefore Buffy is a killer. However, because she only kills monsters and demons (and evil robots) she is not seen as a villain. This episode, along with its companion, “Consequences,” takes this idea and plays with it.  With power comes great responsibility, and on this show, who has more power than the slayer (you know, other than the other slayer)?

There’s a lot going on in this episode.  It starts off with Buffy and Faith working really well together in their fight against vampires.  It’s actually really great to see them fighting together and being all friendly, cause you know, that won’t last long. After the whole evil watcher thing, Faith seems to have come back around nicely, just in time to be a bad influence on Buffy.

What allows Buffy to slowly start losing (or at least testing) her moral compass? Well, that would be the arrival of new Watcher, Wesley Windham-Pryce.  First of all, Alexis Denisof is awesome, and I have been waiting to see Wesley on Buffy since “Helpless.” And, wait, is his British accent more proper here than it was on Angel? Hmmm… it definitely sounds different than I remember, maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve seen his character on either show. Second, his character is such a great buffoon (“Preparation, preparation, preparation” says it all) that Giles now looks extremely cool by comparison. I do appreciate that Giles is still the school librarian.  I mean, the Watcher’s Council obviously got him that job to put him in the slayer’s orbit and give him a place to hide all the occult books he would need in his capacity as Watcher, yet, Wesley just shows up at the school, starts hanging out in the library and goes unquestioned? I know that schools were much more lax about these things in the 90s, but the Watcher’s Council could have made him some sort of teacher or assistant librarian as a cover – don’t you think?

Anyways, Buffy’s reaction to having a new Watcher is great – “Is he evil? The last one was evil.” Faith’s reaction is better – “Screw that.” And then she turns around and walks out of the library. Clearly Wesley has an uphill battle here. He is also the cause of Buffy being more open to rebellion. She never liked taking orders from Giles, but he was able to find teaching moments to get her to take responsibility and never treated her like a lackey. Think back to the very first episode. Buffy is at the Bronze, still resisting the whole slayer thing, when Giles shows up. She teases him, he puts up with it and then gets her to try to hone her senses to see if there are any vampires at the club. She spots one easily and explains to Giles how she knows that he is a vampire.  Giles is a bit flummoxed, as Buffy is not doing things in the traditional way, but he accepts that and he accepts her. Wesley, on the other hand, goes straight in for the orders. And he’s super uncool. She’s having none of that, so when Faith’s bad girl approach calls, she listens.

Interestingly, this is all against the backdrop of college talk. Although Buffy has applied for colleges, she still sees her future as limiting. She understands Xander, who is definitely not going to college. And Willow, of course, has early acceptances from Harvard, Yale, and Wesleyan (didn’t Joss Whedon go to the latter?). During the career fair in season 2 (the same episode that introduced Kendra) Buffy was also not feeling so great about her future.  She has a better outlook now, but it is interesting that when a story about 2 slayers working together comes along, the gang’s future is being discussed yet again.

Speaking of Kendra, Buffy is the Kendra to Faith’s Buffy.  Last season, Kendra had to remind Buffy that slaying isn’t a job, it’s who she is. Kendra was also a rule follower and Buffy was the impulsive one. Now Faith is reminding Buffy that slaying is who she is, but taking it a whole lot further. And because Faith is so impulsive, it puts Buffy in a more responsible position, the position that Kendra used to fill. Doug Petrie, who wrote this episode, says something to the effect that Faith is Buffy’s darker side in his episode commentary. This will come up again when Buffy is learning about Othello in English class. Comparing Buffy to other slayers is interesting.  Obviously, all people are different, and therefore so too are slayers. But seeing how different slayers perceive being the slayer, and what that means, is what makes this and the next episode so important.  And it’s all centered around the idea of how far a slayer can go and how far a slayer should go.  Faith takes this to the extreme with her mantra of, “Want, take, have.”

Doug Petrie also talks about Buffy’s rebirth in this episode. There’s a moment when a vampire seemingly drowns Buffy and she reemerges from the water with, “I hate it when they drown me,” recalling “Prophecy Girl.” This almost drowning serves as a baptism of sorts. When Buffy emerges, she changes and is more open to bad behavior. From that moment on, she makes horrible choices up until the moment when Faith accidentally stakes a human.

This is an understandable mistake. Vampires are coming at them as they walk down an alley, and Alan, the deputy mayor, probably shouldn’t have been in that alley. Buffy sees him as he reaches for her, pushes him away, and then Faith picks up the slack, ready to pounce. As she’s about to stake him, Buffy realizes that he’s not a vampire and tries to warn Faith, but it is too late.

Brief pause: why was Alan there? He must’ve been there to tell Buffy and Faith about the Mayor, right? We’ll never know for sure unfortunately, but he did look pretty uncomfortable in the Mayor’s office with Mayor Wilkins and Mr. Trick. How did he become the Deputy Mayor? When did he find out that the guy he worked for was evil? What made him stay and why decide to speak out now? Unfortunately, we are left with a lot of questions. Of course, none of these really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Back to the murder. I have to wonder, what if their roles were reversed? What if Faith was the one who pushed Alan, and Buffy was the one who tagged in with the stake? Would Buffy have realized he was human before shoving the stake into his heart? Would Faith have noticed from afar or would she have continued moving, knowing that B can handle herself? Since Buffy is more of a thinker and more of an observer than Faith, who again is more impulsive and more about the action, would Buffy have been able to stop the murder from taking place if their roles had been reversed? This doesn’t really matter. We don’t want the hero of our show, who will always be Buffy, killing anyone, so it had to be Faith. However, how Faith handled this crisis, versus what Buffy would have done, is how you know that Buffy is a moral character and Faith is not.

I have to believe that this event affected Faith, even if she won’t admit it. She goes back to look at the body and seems genuinely upset. But then, like a Vampire Diaries vampire turning off his humanity, she makes a decision off-camera to not care. She disposes of the body (and honestly, not very well as he pops right up again in the next episode), and moves on, not wanting to discuss what happened, not wanting to think about it, and, as she tells Buffy, not even caring that she killed someone.

What follows is fodder for the next blog.  While this feels like a natural ending point there is so much more to discuss here that I haven’t really even touched on.

I mean, Buffy is pushing Willow, her best friend aside.  And using the same lousy excuse the whole gang used on Xander in “The Zeppo.” Doesn’t Buffy get that just by being her friend Willow and Xander will always be in danger? Poor Willow. Or what about when Xander’s eye twitches every time Faith’s name is mentioned? Or how about when Joyce says that she doesn’t want to meddle in Buffy’s slaying? I guess she learned her lesson after “Gingerbread,” huh?

I haven’t even talked about what a bad influence Faith was on Buffy.  I mean, I skirted the topic, but then went straight to the murder, leaving out all the class skipping (when there’s an important test to be taken) and store robbing.  For the first time, Buffy breaks the law for fun, rather than out of necessity. And then, while escaping police custody, she and Faith injure the police officers and against Buffy’s better judgement, they leave without calling for help. Buffy gets so caught up in the whole bad girl behavior thing that she actually freaks Angel out by being way too sexual with him. Sure, they’re back together, but no one wants Angel to lose his soul again and it seems as if Buffy’s too caught up in her own feelings to realize that her behavior with Angel is inappropriate. Angel has to remove himself from Buffy and get all business-like with her.

Oh, and Wesley! Yes, I talked about him, but I didn’t mention what a horrible Watcher he is. Aside from all the negative things I’ve already mentioned, he thought that the demon of the week was dead, then got kidnapped by said demon, and then was ready to blurt out everything to that demon in order to try to save his life – what an amateur! And then, because he lacks fighting skills, Giles had to save him. Now, this isn’t entirely Wesley’s fault, the Watcher’s Council doesn’t really field train their guys. You know, cause that’s the slayer’s job anyways.

And speaking of the demon of the week, when Buffy kills him he utters one more ominous line –  “When he rises you’ll wish I’d killed you all.” We know that he is referring to the Mayor, but our characters haven’t figured that out yet. And Mayor Wilkins has that whole dedication ceremony that makes him invincible. A sword-wielding vampire slices his head in two, and the Mayor lives (and magically heals).  This does not bode well for our hero.

At the end of this episode there is also a not-so-sneaky Shakespeare reference. Faith is washing blood out of her shirt and, metaphorically, off of her. Here, she is like Lady MacBeth, only Faith’s conscious doesn’t seem to be in play here. Faith washes out the blood, but Buffy is the one who’ll have the hard time dealing with the murder, which I’ll talk more about in the next blog.

“The Wish”

This may very well be my favorite season 3 episode. I think alternate reality episodes/doppelgänger episodes and the like tend to me my favorites across the board. For example, two of my favorite Roswell episodes are “Summer of ‘47,” in which the actors play different characters as a veteran tells Michael about what he saw when the spaceship crashed and the aftermath that followed over the next few days and “I Married an Alien,” which re-imagines Roswell as Bewitched. (There are also some alien doppelgänger episodes, btw.) And let’s not forget the Supernatural episodes “The French Mistake” and “Changing Channels.” The former has the Winchesters sucked into a world where they are actors on a tv show called Supernatural playing themselves, and the latter has them featured as part of other television shows, like a Grey’s Anatomy parody. But the Supernatural sitcom is my favorite. My point is, “The Wish” is right up my alley.

Roswell’s “I Married an Alien”

“Changing Channels” envisions Supernatural as a sticom

This episode is also the first one with Anya, played by Emma Caulfield. I remember seeing her when this episode originally aired and thinking, “oh, that’s Brandon Walsh’s girlfriend.” I wasn’t even allowed to watch Beverly Hills 90210, but I knew that much. Now, as I’m watching that entire series all the way through for the first time, seeing Susan, I think, “it’s Anya!” It’s just kind of funny how things change. It’s also funny seeing Anya as the monster of the week, with no indication that she will return, knowing that she actually becomes a huge part of the show.

Emma Caulfield

Meet Anya

Beverly Hills 90210

Jonathan’s back in this episode as well. And it’s scenes like this that explain his entire trajectory as we get closer and closer to “Earshot.” Poor Cordelia, I honestly don’t know if I feel worse for her or for Jonathan. She found out her boyfriend was cheating on her, got impaled, gets back to school and finds that vapid Harmony is now the queen b (despite Cordy’s “Queen C” license plate), and then Harmony, who is supposed to be her friend is just totally mean and uses Jonathan to show Cordelia how far she’s fallen in the eyes of Harmony and the popular girls. It’s like that time in middle school where a boy made fun of me for wearing sweatpants out in public (clearly, I was ahead of my time) by comparing me to an uncool boy who also wore sweatpants. The mean boy was making fun of me and this other kid, but using the other kid to show me how uncool I was. I think I won in the end though. The other “uncool” kid and I became friends in high school and ended up going to prom together. But this blog isn’t about me… sigh.

And of course, while Cordelia’s having a rough go of it, so are Buffy, Willow, and Xander. When Buffy’s asked how she makes it through after heartache she says, “I have you guys.” Buffy is wise and this friendship triangle (or triumvirate?) is very strong. We also see how Oz is dealing with everything. Or rather, we see another example of what a great guy he is. He’s heartbroken as well and is mad at Willow and Xander, but when confronted by Willow he’s still really nice. I mean he tells her the truth, but he could be a jerk about it, and he just isn’t. Which considering everything that happened is really big of him.

This episode isn’t about any of them, though. It’s about Cordelia and what she’s going through. And that is how we get the wish dimension. Anya is new, popular, and the only one that isn’t judging Cordelia. So, of course, Cordelia opens up to her, not realizing that Anya is actually a demon that’s pretty much targeted Cordelia. As we find out later, Anya specializes in spurned women. (Side note: isn’t it interesting that Anya ends up with Xander, who is the reason that Cordelia is vulnerable to Anya in the first place?)

So Cordelia wishes that Buffy never came to Sunnydale and then she is magically transported to a Buffy-less Sunnydale, completely unaware of how bad things are about to get.

Now at this point we need to talk about the events from the very first episode of Buffy. Yes, let’s go back to “Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest.” In those episodes Willow and Jesse get taken by vampires. They are to be brought to the Master. Xander ends up going after Willow, solely because of Buffy. We know that Jesse became a vampire and that Xander ended up killing him, but without Buffy he would not have been turned into a vampire at all (he was Buffy bait), and so we can assume that Willow would not have been either. Now, if Willow had been turned, it is entirely possible that she would have turned Xander, but I think, realistically, Willow, along with Jesse, would have just been brought to the Master and killed.

When the Harvest starts at the Bronze, Cordelia is the person chosen by Luke to die first. Meaning that, technically, Cordelia would be dead in this world. However, since this world exists because of her wish, I suppose things would have been altered just enough for her to have survived. And I guess if I really take the time to think about it, she ended up on Luke’s radar because Jesse was dancing with her. Vampire Jesse, who would have just been killed if not for Buffy. So maybe she would have somehow survived the Harvest.

That being said, considering that this wish world is based pretty much entirely on a what if scenario from the first two episodes, it’s a shame that neither Jesse (Eric Balfour) nor Darla (Julie Benz) was in this episode. Oh well. One person that is in this episode that we haven’t seen since the beginning is Cordelia’s friend who was also in Bring it On, Nicole Bilderback. She dies pretty early on though…

Eric Balfour as Jesse

Julie Benz as Darla

unaired pilot

Nicole Bilderback as background Cordette

and in Bring it On

Okay, one other thing, and this isn’t an early BtVS history lesson – Vamp Willow is affected by crosses. She’s Jewish. Why would a cross affect her? Are you telling me that Jesus is the only figure that vampires would be afraid of? I think not! This is where I once again talk about how at least on Being Human, both the British and American versions, the writers understood that a Star of David (or another non-Christian religious symbol) can be just as effective. That just bugs me, I’m sorry. Moving on.

Speaking of Vamp Willow… she’s pretty awesome, right? I mean, she does get brought back this season, so obviously Alyson Hannigan did a good job being a completely different version of Willow. And kudos to Marti Noxon for writing the character in the first place. I love when she says, “Bored now.” I sometimes say that in life. Of course, she also says, “Willow’s going to make you bark” to Angel, which is just… ew! The whole Angel part of the wish world is weird. And Willow and Xander’s, um, fondness for playing with him is just, ew!

I don’t know off the top of my head when Charlaine Harris’s first Sookie Stackhouse novel was published, but the Master’s plan in this episode is very True Blood, don’t you think? Obviously, I had never heard of Sookie Stackhouse when this episode first aired (and I doubt that the first book had been published yet), but it is quite the coincidence. RIP first victim Cordette, as played by Nicole Bilderback…

Alright, also in this world are the White Hats, run by Giles. Oz is a member, as well as Larry (yes, Larry! – this is the first time we truly see him as a good guy). Nancy is also a member – I can’t recall if she appears in the real world at all though. These are the vampire fighting people and Cordelia gets their attention when she runs to Giles looking for Buffy (and also because she’s wearing a bright color – apparently you don’t want to call attention to yourself, even in bright daylight). The fact that she knows about Buffy is the thing that ultimately saves the world and brings everything back to normal, but she just seems crazy to everyone other than Giles. Sadly, the White Hats aren’t as effective as a slayer and Cordelia is killed by Willow and Xander together, right in front of Giles. Geez, even in this world Cordelia has to deal with the two of them being together – as they are killing her.

The White Hats

By the way – why do people still live in Sunnydale in this world? If you know you have to wear all dull earth tones in order to not be spotted and be inside by a certain time of night or be eaten, wouldn’t you move? Yet Sunnydale High is functioning normally and there are still plenty of people living there. Are the adults in Sunnydale really that stupid? Or lazy? I just don’t get it, but if no one lived there then this episode would be over pretty quickly so I will let it go.

Alright, so Cordelia is dead, but Giles is trying to track down Buffy, who finally arrives in Sunnydale and makes quite the entrance. Because, you know, when does Buffy not make an entrance? She is scarred and clearly not the same person, but she does go to fight the Master. Then just about everyone dies. We see Buffy beating up Vamp Xander, he in turn stakes Angel, then Buffy stakes Xander. Willow, in the meantime, is staked by Oz and then the Master kills Buffy. As far as we know Oz lives, but if this world were to continue, I’m not so sure that he’d be around much longer.

Giles, while all this is happening, summons Anyanka (Anya’s full demon name) and figures out how to get things back to how they were meant to be. This then leads to a great ending as Cordelia cluelessly drones on to Anya about all the things she wishes, while Anya tries to figure out why she is unable to grant any of those wishes. And that’s that… until “Dopplegängland.” Dun dun dun!

“Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest”

Episodes 1 and 2, in my mind, are tied together. When Buffy debuted, the WB aired them together like a 2-hour episode, so referring to “The Harvest” as the 2^nd episode is weird. I feel the same way about many of the first season episodes, to me, “The Witch” is the 2^nd episode, but really it is the third. My point being, that I can’t separate them out from one another, even though I just watched them separately during this viewing (I didn’t have 2 hours to spare when I started, it felt weird to stop watching in what felt like the middle).

The episode starts off in a typical horror movie way, but more importantly introduces us to Julie Benz, as Darla. Darla is a character that the viewer assumes will be dead in a few minutes, but in a great twist of irony, turns out to be the killer and the first vampire we see in the series. Clearly, this isn’t about a blonde bimbo being led astray and to her death, it’s about blondes (and other females) turning the tropes in the other direction and laughing about it.   Or, as I’m sure I would have articulated when I was in high school, it was cool and I didn’t see it coming.

LOS ANGELES – SEP 15: Julie Benz at the Audi Celebrates The 68th Emmys at the Catch on September 15, 2016 in West Hollywood, CA

When we first meet Buffy she is having nightmares and about to start her first day at a new school. Now, before I go any further, I must explain how the show works with the movie and what changed.

Here Buffy is a sophomore, not a senior, but other than that a lot of her backstory tracks. She went to Hemery High School in Los Angeles and was kicked out for burning down the gym. In the movie she didn’t exactly get kicked out, but she didn’t go back, and she didn’t burn down the gym, she just killed a bunch of non-exploding vampires at a dance held in the gym. Both Buffys had dreams about slaying and became the slayer while attending high school in LA.

Aside from the nightmares, our Buffy seems like a pretty average girl. Of course, as the viewer you know that she is the vampire slayer before it’s even mentioned. In fact, her watcher is the last main character that we meet (Angel wasn’t a regular yet, so he doesn’t count). By the time we meet Giles in the library we already have a good sense of who Buffy is, without the slaying. Cordelia befriends her and Buffy passes her cool test, so we know that Buffy could be popular. We also find out pretty quickly that she doesn’t want to be popular if the cost is hurting others’ feelings. That’s how Willow is initially introduced to Buffy. Buffy doesn’t meet Xander until after her first run in with Giles, but the audience sees him as he sees Buffy for the first time and we learn that he is a skateboarder, and not the cool kind. (Of course, he turns out to not be a skateboarder, as production-wise, skateboarding is not practical. Life lessons.) We, as viewers, also meet Willow at this point, before her initial meeting with Buffy.

There are many essays, and I’m sure even courses, on the hero’s journey as seen through BtVS, and it runs through the entire series, individual seasons and through certain stand alone episodes. As the introduction to the show and this world, these first two episodes contain the hero’s journey in full, while also setting up the season, and eventually the entire series with the start of her journey. And it truly begins in the library when Giles shows Buffy the “Vampyr” book that leads to her rejecting her destiny until a dead guy (the one Darla killed) shows up in the girls’ locker room. Even then she doesn’t want to get back into it, but finds she has to when vampires take her new friends Willow and Jesse.

also available for purchase as a stationary set

By the end of the episode(s) we find that Buffy has embraced her destiny, but this time, instead of losing friends, as she did at Hemery High, she will be bringing some allies along on her journey. Her watcher Giles, who will easily fill the father role that Buffy lacks, quirky, smart, and computer savvy Willow, and cute, but awkward Xander become her friends and the closest people to co-slayers that she has (at least until Kendra’s introduction in season 2). Additionally, she has a sometimes foil in Cordelia and a handsome, brooding stranger for an ally in Angel.

Jesse is worth mentioning only because he is a friend of Buffy’s who is killed in this episode (well, turned into a vampire and then accidentally staked by Xander). The viewer quickly grows to like him and it is crushing when he dies, but also a catalyst for Xander and Willow. By losing a friend they now have a stake (pun not intended) in Buffy and her calling as the vampire slayer. They can’t ignore what they’ve seen and we, as viewers, learn that no one is truly safe on the Hellmouth.

One thing I noticed while re-watching this is that Giles gets way too close to Buffy. I mean, he has her against a wall at one point and as an adult and as a teacher I want to call him to the principal’s office for a discussion on proper teacher-student relations. Joss fought for them to not be so close. I guess it’s good he stepped in or it would be worse? It’s kind of yucky, even though it is made perfectly clear that Giles is not a predator and he has no sexual interest in Buffy. He also, at one point gets a little too close to Willow, as she sits at a computer and he leans over her. Also not okay. At what point do viewers not notice this anymore? Or maybe Giles doesn’t continuously get too close for comfort?

Also, Mark Metcalf as the Master has the line “You are all weak,” which makes me chuckle because now I know who Mark Metcalf is (and I don’t mean the guy from Animal House, although, yes, that is him, too). Mark Metcalf was the dad in the Twisted Sister music video for “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” You know that line in the song “You’re all worthless and weak”? Well, that’s what I thought of. You’re welcome.

He’s actually really nice in person.

From Animal House

Overall, I was surprised by how well this episode holds up. Sure, make up and special effects were made to be so creepy that they seem bad by today’s standards, but I was expecting the whole thing to be a little too 90s and therefore distracting. It wasn’t. Of course, if I were a teenager now, maybe I’d feel differently, but I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching these episodes.