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tori_reviewsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x09 – What’s My Line 1
After a brief but intense trip into fanfic land I come back to the show (show will now have to split time with fanfic for a bit I suspect). I’m mostly going to review this two-parter as a single story, but I wanted to get a couple of things down.
Also have a lot of thoughts diving back into what was my first intense online fandom (barring maybe TXF, but I didn’t do as much online for that). Starting with, it’s making me miss forums and going on to ‘I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think I have a type’ because I can draw a line from shipping B/G when I was younger to a lot of things I’ve shipped in the years since; leading me to the realization that May is Coulson’s Watcher in the early seasons of AoS and that may in fact be what got me shipping it.
Which isn’t really relevant to this episode. Because Angel is actually tolerable this episode. I think Buffy is too mature for him, because he is clearly a child in a grown man’s dead body, but he’s not that bad as a character here. In that, he’s still kind of (or a lot) awful as a person, who’s not good with people, and definitely has a demon inside him but…it’s more interesting than what we usually get with him. Bad boyfriend material, better character.
I was going to make a point about Spike, but I really think it’s better for next time.
Kendra’s accent is still ridiculous. I will reserve judgment on whether her soundtrack is racist until seeing the next episode. This was trying to make us associate her with the jaguar card so ‘jungle music’ was part of the misdirection.
This career day/week backdrop is not well established. The character stuff with Buffy that comes from it is good, but the plotline itself makes very little sense.
Why don’t the vampires have more reaction to the cross they steal? They’re barely put off by it at all.
It is sort of relevant to my interests how the show parallels Angel and Giles giving Buffy the same advice on how to deal with these guys coming after her. But where Angel is angry-scared, Giles is just scared, and I think that does a better job getting through to her how dangerous it is. (I do also have thoughts on how Giles responds to Buffy’s concerns about her future, but mostly my brain is pulling up thoughts of the scene in s5 when he just straight up admits that her short life expectancy is rather painful for him to think about).
And Buffy’s solution to the current problem makes a lot of sense (even if Angel’s room is ridiculous). It’s isolated, easily defensible, and largely unknown as being associated with her. Not to mention it’s psychologically comforting to her. How Kendra finds her there I’m not sure, but it makes a good cliffhanger.
What am I shipping?
Willow and Oz’s meeting is adorable, his little face going ‘it’s that girl, what can I say to her?’ makes me smile. I do wish we knew a bit more about what they talked about, and I had forgotten that Oz was supposed to be on Willow’s level in the brains and CS specifically department.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x10 – What’s My Line 2
Well, now we’re two for two on two-parters where the setup episode is better than the payoff. As I recall, that is not the norm for two part stories in the future, so it’s kind of weird that it started out that way. And, really, the quality of this story is fairly consistently ‘decent’ in both parts but the second half almost always has a higher hurdle to take.
Which I guess by that technically, if they score similar on the execution and the second part has a higher degree of difficulty…damn it, I’m not even watching the Olympics but I seem to be thinking about it (yes, that’s how far ahead I can get on banking episodes when I’m into a show).
But I also think this episode is less balanced in tone. The Xander and Cordy scenes are completely disjointed from the rest of the episode; the Buffy and Kendra stuff never really settles on a tone; as much as I like the stuff with Angel and Dru, it feels more than a little tacked on; and the villain setup for the Order goes to waste when they’re basically all jokes. The last is even jarring within itself because we are supposed to take them as a serious threat that is causing problems for two Slayers and their support squad, but then they’re all terrible at their job.
Also…yeah that school shooting stuff plays pretty differently 25 years later. It’s interesting to think that this is pre-Columbine even (I might have had to juggle dates sometimes, but I can remember that it ended up impacting Earshot next season) when – well - I remember Columbine; but I also remember pre-Columbine. It’s weird to think about how long ago that was, and how this the world of my adolescence. It’s not exactly making me nostalgic for that time, but it’s making me feel how far away it was.
…okay, that got a little heavy.
I find myself without much of a hook into this episode, so I’m gonna jump right to that Spike thing I was saving for this review. As I recall, Spike was supposed to die in this episode, but the writers decided they wanted to keep him around for the rest of the season (with options on more). I’m torn on this. Because (again as I recall), the best Spike stuff is in the back half of s2 so I don’t want to say that they should have just killed him, but in the long run I really wish they had.
There are two ways to look at this choice by the writers. The favorable one is that a story is an evolving thing, and they saw potential in further storylines with this character and killing him now would be taking away that chance. But the less favorable one it that the story was set up to have him die so the story is made weaker by cutting off the payoff. There’s also the element that this sort of decision making, led by writers developing too much attachment to a character or actor, leads to future bad decision-making surrounding said element.
In this case, I’m not sure what I would consider it in the moment. Spike was only starting to hit his stride as a character, and as much fun as Dru is she was clearly not going to be a Big Bad, and quite frankly, this episode makes me think she wouldn’t exactly go off the deep end without Spike. She would still be there when Angelus gets going, but I kind of think that dynamic needs Spike, at least for a while longer.
I did notice a kind of interesting parallel between Buffy and Dru with the secret stashes of vampire killing/torture options. Which again, considering the oncoming Angelus, kind of makes sense to parallel them as Angelus’ victims.
Look, I’m not looking over the fandom that intensely yet, but I’m thinking the signs of a great evil rising in Sunnydale are about Angelus rather than Dru. And Kendra might have been able to stop that from happening at least a bit longer if she had stuck around.
The career fair backdrop remains poorly incorporated. In case it needed saying.
Oh what the hell, I’m me, I’m going to talk about Giles. This two-parter has the ability to contrast the way he interacts with Buffy, Willow, and Kendra. I was quite fond of the way part 1 incorporated him and Willow, because that has a very mentor/apprentice vibe to it. Whether or not the show was thinking of a Watcher-Willow future, it certainly could have gone that direction. Which is then interesting to contrast with the way he reacts to Kendra who is kind of a fusion of Buffy and Willow in terms of what he can discuss with her. And while that’s clearly fun for a while, they’re more like coworkers with the same interests. The Scoobies are more than that, they’re messy and an increasingly odd bunch who there is no handbook for.
So when Willow comments on Buffy being Giles’ Slayer (and by the reciprocal property, he is her Watcher), it’s true. Giles and Kendra are, to some extent, made from the same mold of handbook Watchers and Slayers. But Giles and Buffy, plus all the Scoobies, are forged in fire until there isn’t one without the other.
Which also puts a different spin on Kendra’s parting lines for me. Buffy didn’t let Slaying become her life; she made her life part of her being the Slayer. And therefore, a life worth living.
What am I shipping?
Hello, Fang Gang. I am down for some torture porn with Angel and Drucilla, and Spike can join in if he wants. I kind of want to write a long digression on how Dru both worships Angel and despises him; also how Spike may call Dru ‘pet’ in a slang way, but I think Dru does actually keep him around as a pet. She’s way more wrapped up in Angel than she cares about Spike.
This is kind of the first time Oz has been a character and as a character I’m not fully sold on him, but this ship does make me smile and I like the way he likes Willow. I think I would get frustrated with his attitude to basically everything, but I do think he’s good for Willow by being so laid back when she’s high strung.
After a brief but intense trip into fanfic land I come back to the show (show will now have to split time with fanfic for a bit I suspect). I’m mostly going to review this two-parter as a single story, but I wanted to get a couple of things down.
Also have a lot of thoughts diving back into what was my first intense online fandom (barring maybe TXF, but I didn’t do as much online for that). Starting with, it’s making me miss forums and going on to ‘I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think I have a type’ because I can draw a line from shipping B/G when I was younger to a lot of things I’ve shipped in the years since; leading me to the realization that May is Coulson’s Watcher in the early seasons of AoS and that may in fact be what got me shipping it.
Which isn’t really relevant to this episode. Because Angel is actually tolerable this episode. I think Buffy is too mature for him, because he is clearly a child in a grown man’s dead body, but he’s not that bad as a character here. In that, he’s still kind of (or a lot) awful as a person, who’s not good with people, and definitely has a demon inside him but…it’s more interesting than what we usually get with him. Bad boyfriend material, better character.
I was going to make a point about Spike, but I really think it’s better for next time.
Kendra’s accent is still ridiculous. I will reserve judgment on whether her soundtrack is racist until seeing the next episode. This was trying to make us associate her with the jaguar card so ‘jungle music’ was part of the misdirection.
This career day/week backdrop is not well established. The character stuff with Buffy that comes from it is good, but the plotline itself makes very little sense.
Why don’t the vampires have more reaction to the cross they steal? They’re barely put off by it at all.
It is sort of relevant to my interests how the show parallels Angel and Giles giving Buffy the same advice on how to deal with these guys coming after her. But where Angel is angry-scared, Giles is just scared, and I think that does a better job getting through to her how dangerous it is. (I do also have thoughts on how Giles responds to Buffy’s concerns about her future, but mostly my brain is pulling up thoughts of the scene in s5 when he just straight up admits that her short life expectancy is rather painful for him to think about).
And Buffy’s solution to the current problem makes a lot of sense (even if Angel’s room is ridiculous). It’s isolated, easily defensible, and largely unknown as being associated with her. Not to mention it’s psychologically comforting to her. How Kendra finds her there I’m not sure, but it makes a good cliffhanger.
What am I shipping?
Willow and Oz’s meeting is adorable, his little face going ‘it’s that girl, what can I say to her?’ makes me smile. I do wish we knew a bit more about what they talked about, and I had forgotten that Oz was supposed to be on Willow’s level in the brains and CS specifically department.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x10 – What’s My Line 2
Well, now we’re two for two on two-parters where the setup episode is better than the payoff. As I recall, that is not the norm for two part stories in the future, so it’s kind of weird that it started out that way. And, really, the quality of this story is fairly consistently ‘decent’ in both parts but the second half almost always has a higher hurdle to take.
Which I guess by that technically, if they score similar on the execution and the second part has a higher degree of difficulty…damn it, I’m not even watching the Olympics but I seem to be thinking about it (yes, that’s how far ahead I can get on banking episodes when I’m into a show).
But I also think this episode is less balanced in tone. The Xander and Cordy scenes are completely disjointed from the rest of the episode; the Buffy and Kendra stuff never really settles on a tone; as much as I like the stuff with Angel and Dru, it feels more than a little tacked on; and the villain setup for the Order goes to waste when they’re basically all jokes. The last is even jarring within itself because we are supposed to take them as a serious threat that is causing problems for two Slayers and their support squad, but then they’re all terrible at their job.
Also…yeah that school shooting stuff plays pretty differently 25 years later. It’s interesting to think that this is pre-Columbine even (I might have had to juggle dates sometimes, but I can remember that it ended up impacting Earshot next season) when – well - I remember Columbine; but I also remember pre-Columbine. It’s weird to think about how long ago that was, and how this the world of my adolescence. It’s not exactly making me nostalgic for that time, but it’s making me feel how far away it was.
…okay, that got a little heavy.
I find myself without much of a hook into this episode, so I’m gonna jump right to that Spike thing I was saving for this review. As I recall, Spike was supposed to die in this episode, but the writers decided they wanted to keep him around for the rest of the season (with options on more). I’m torn on this. Because (again as I recall), the best Spike stuff is in the back half of s2 so I don’t want to say that they should have just killed him, but in the long run I really wish they had.
There are two ways to look at this choice by the writers. The favorable one is that a story is an evolving thing, and they saw potential in further storylines with this character and killing him now would be taking away that chance. But the less favorable one it that the story was set up to have him die so the story is made weaker by cutting off the payoff. There’s also the element that this sort of decision making, led by writers developing too much attachment to a character or actor, leads to future bad decision-making surrounding said element.
In this case, I’m not sure what I would consider it in the moment. Spike was only starting to hit his stride as a character, and as much fun as Dru is she was clearly not going to be a Big Bad, and quite frankly, this episode makes me think she wouldn’t exactly go off the deep end without Spike. She would still be there when Angelus gets going, but I kind of think that dynamic needs Spike, at least for a while longer.
I did notice a kind of interesting parallel between Buffy and Dru with the secret stashes of vampire killing/torture options. Which again, considering the oncoming Angelus, kind of makes sense to parallel them as Angelus’ victims.
Look, I’m not looking over the fandom that intensely yet, but I’m thinking the signs of a great evil rising in Sunnydale are about Angelus rather than Dru. And Kendra might have been able to stop that from happening at least a bit longer if she had stuck around.
The career fair backdrop remains poorly incorporated. In case it needed saying.
Oh what the hell, I’m me, I’m going to talk about Giles. This two-parter has the ability to contrast the way he interacts with Buffy, Willow, and Kendra. I was quite fond of the way part 1 incorporated him and Willow, because that has a very mentor/apprentice vibe to it. Whether or not the show was thinking of a Watcher-Willow future, it certainly could have gone that direction. Which is then interesting to contrast with the way he reacts to Kendra who is kind of a fusion of Buffy and Willow in terms of what he can discuss with her. And while that’s clearly fun for a while, they’re more like coworkers with the same interests. The Scoobies are more than that, they’re messy and an increasingly odd bunch who there is no handbook for.
So when Willow comments on Buffy being Giles’ Slayer (and by the reciprocal property, he is her Watcher), it’s true. Giles and Kendra are, to some extent, made from the same mold of handbook Watchers and Slayers. But Giles and Buffy, plus all the Scoobies, are forged in fire until there isn’t one without the other.
Which also puts a different spin on Kendra’s parting lines for me. Buffy didn’t let Slaying become her life; she made her life part of her being the Slayer. And therefore, a life worth living.
What am I shipping?
Hello, Fang Gang. I am down for some torture porn with Angel and Drucilla, and Spike can join in if he wants. I kind of want to write a long digression on how Dru both worships Angel and despises him; also how Spike may call Dru ‘pet’ in a slang way, but I think Dru does actually keep him around as a pet. She’s way more wrapped up in Angel than she cares about Spike.
This is kind of the first time Oz has been a character and as a character I’m not fully sold on him, but this ship does make me smile and I like the way he likes Willow. I think I would get frustrated with his attitude to basically everything, but I do think he’s good for Willow by being so laid back when she’s high strung.
