Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x11 – Ted
Apr. 25th, 2022 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x11 – Ted
I might have only seen this episode once before. I’d say twice at the most, and it’s another one where I remembered the basic beats but not a lot of the details. I’m also pretty sure that in the past I’ve somewhat rushed through this and the next episode to get to the big event.
But taking the time to analyze it, this is a shockingly well-done episode. It probably could have been done better, if the plot had time to build up in the background of other stories for a bit, but as a self-contained story this is very well done. Within itself it actually is doing that kind of buildup scene-to-scene or even within scenes; things are going on and then eventually are revealed to be important plot points. For example, just about the time I started thinking ‘what is Giles loading up this bag for?’ we found out.
I’m sure this would never be anyone’s favorite episode, but this is the kind of episode I’m having so much fun rediscovering on this watch. The plot is…a tad stretched perhaps in that it doesn’t think too far about the implications of bringing androids into this universe, especially in the 50s (although it is a very 50s sci-fi concept). But it has a lot of heart and does good things with the characters, and even the Slayer’s role in this world gets some more discussion.
This episode offers another point in a long standing (but only recently remembered) bit of headcanon that the Monks fucked up Hank Summers when they invented Dawn. Hank is clearly not a great dad, nor was a he a great husband, I don’t have a problem believing that. But he clearly is still Buffy’s dad; and someone that, even though Buffy knows it’s not going to happen, she wants her mom to be with. I’m quite willing to call Hank s5-onward a bastard for all he doesn’t do for the girls, but I nurse the thought that the Monks (also the writers) needed him to be worse somehow to make the Dawn-reality work.
Sorry, recent trip into fic land brought this back to my head and then I was offered a ripe place to throw it out there. Also I could be completely misremembering and the vilification of Hank happens much sooner than I recall.
While what happens with Buffy and Ted will be more thoroughly examined in s3, this is almost sharper in its fear of what the Slayer can do if they’re not in control. Because this was a different kind of accident; not a random act but an overreaction. The episode largely lets Buffy off the hook in the end by having Ted be a robot and also completely insane and drugging people so they don’t notice, but the middle section is heavy. We know that Buffy was provoked into her attack, but even then we don’t know that what she did was something that could let off the hook for a decent chunk of time.
I think that about the sticky-buns scene was when it clicked for me that the food must be part of Ted’s game. But that was after we’d seen freaky Ted, and I did remember enough of this episode to know there was a problem with Ted, so the cooking slotted into my pre-prepared hole quite easily at that point.
But I’m guessing Ted’s wiring didn’t have a lot of code for how to deal with going after a woman with a teenager, probably especially a teenage daughter. Because he pushes way too hard too fast, which highlights that there must be something else going on with Joyce for her not to tell him to go slower. If the woman had a seven year old who would be more easily plied with treats and minigolf, the game plan probably works; the programming from the 50s may have had some idea how to deal with a teenage boy (also treats); but someone as guarded as Buffy who doesn’t immediately fall under his sway he doesn’t have a plan for.
I do kind of wish that maybe at the start Buffy had been willing to give it some shot, maybe even almost fell into the trap, but it was some element of being the Slayer that made her less susceptible to the drugs or something. Because then there is a Slayer element to why he gives her a vibe he’s not giving others, but she can’t nail it down and it’s largely indistinguishable from her being standoffish to Joyce’s new boyfriend until all the pieces fall into place. What we have is so close to being that, but it doesn’t quite line up so perfectly.
I am a little surprised Snyder wasn’t all over this as soon as it happened, seems like something he’d jump on. I mean, the guy has decided to make teenagers in general and one sixteen year old girl in specific his mortal enemy.
Flipside, I do like that it’s left ambiguous whether Joyce was going to cover for Buffy or not. I don’t think even she knows, she’s too in shock to have decided. And I like the way it’s incorporated that Buffy being the Slayer is working against her (in that she doesn’t bruise) but her being a teenage girl is important in people thinking it had to be an accident even if it wasn’t as provoked as she’s saying.
I finding myself with a couple thoughts about Giles’ role in this one (within Buffy’s story I mean, his own side plot is…fine), but I can’t seem to force them together even though they kind of are similar. So I may have to repeat some bits in the next couple points.
Again, I am surprised by how much I’m already shipping this. I said from the start that I didn’t really expect it to come back to me until s3, but holy smokes Batman I can’t stop. I’m going to be hopeless by Helpless. Right now we’re still in the acorns stage. Their relationship is really hard to define so you see what your goggles tell you is there, and I see shippy. Not in the ‘kiss already’ or ‘get married now and have lots of babies’ way, but in the ‘I have a lot of feelings and a blog so I’m going to talk about it’ way.
Because he runs up to her the same way Xander and Willow do, except you know he isn’t in denial like they are. He’s not expecting a supernatural explanation, and he can tell at a glance how much she’s hurting. There’s so little he can do; he doesn’t know how this is going to shake out; he can’t even hug her because they’re in the crowded hallway; even though you know that he was the first person they were directed to talk to about Buffy. Also I really want more details on how that interview went, and whether he gave this glowing response that no other teacher is going to, or whether he got flustered and managed to make things worse because he knows Buffy’s temper and what she’s capable of physically. But Giles is just there, and on her side, never giving her reason to doubt that he’s in her corner.
The fact that Buffy doesn’t turn to Angel in this is kind of interesting writing choice. This ends up being about the support Buffy gets from her friends rather than what kind of sympathy Angel (the killer) could offer. I don’t know exactly what to read into that, either in character or on a meta level, but I think it is an interesting choice. It means that when Buffy’s main motication was to get out of the house, she went to school instead of going to talk to Angel about what had happened. Because Xander, Willow, Giles, and Cordelia (to lesser impact on Buffy) are people; they’re her people, and they are the people who love and support her through this. As they will be for the rest of the season.
My other Giles point is even more meta. Because I do see what they were doing paralleling the opening with Joyce and the end with Giles/Jenny but…in so much of what doesn’t happen in this story I’m finding my official B/G shipper ‘father’s love my ass’ card (and I’ll just keep it handy). I ship it and definitely don’t see him in a father’s role, and I kept expecting the show to do something that pulled Giles into a conversation about Joyce and Ted. Something like an offhand comment that ‘it could be worse, she could be dating Giles’ or in all the ‘who would be okay for your mom’ talk for Giles to come up. And he doesn’t. The place where Giles is involved is more of a parallel to Buffy talking with Angel about Ted than it is suggesting she sees Giles as the father figure in her life.
What am I shipping?
I’m not shipping Xander/Cordy exactly, but they seemed more fun in this episode than last time.
And while I don’t really like the stuff at the park between Giles and Jenny, their opening conversation is very sweet and I am glad they did at least briefly make up.
I might have only seen this episode once before. I’d say twice at the most, and it’s another one where I remembered the basic beats but not a lot of the details. I’m also pretty sure that in the past I’ve somewhat rushed through this and the next episode to get to the big event.
But taking the time to analyze it, this is a shockingly well-done episode. It probably could have been done better, if the plot had time to build up in the background of other stories for a bit, but as a self-contained story this is very well done. Within itself it actually is doing that kind of buildup scene-to-scene or even within scenes; things are going on and then eventually are revealed to be important plot points. For example, just about the time I started thinking ‘what is Giles loading up this bag for?’ we found out.
I’m sure this would never be anyone’s favorite episode, but this is the kind of episode I’m having so much fun rediscovering on this watch. The plot is…a tad stretched perhaps in that it doesn’t think too far about the implications of bringing androids into this universe, especially in the 50s (although it is a very 50s sci-fi concept). But it has a lot of heart and does good things with the characters, and even the Slayer’s role in this world gets some more discussion.
This episode offers another point in a long standing (but only recently remembered) bit of headcanon that the Monks fucked up Hank Summers when they invented Dawn. Hank is clearly not a great dad, nor was a he a great husband, I don’t have a problem believing that. But he clearly is still Buffy’s dad; and someone that, even though Buffy knows it’s not going to happen, she wants her mom to be with. I’m quite willing to call Hank s5-onward a bastard for all he doesn’t do for the girls, but I nurse the thought that the Monks (also the writers) needed him to be worse somehow to make the Dawn-reality work.
Sorry, recent trip into fic land brought this back to my head and then I was offered a ripe place to throw it out there. Also I could be completely misremembering and the vilification of Hank happens much sooner than I recall.
While what happens with Buffy and Ted will be more thoroughly examined in s3, this is almost sharper in its fear of what the Slayer can do if they’re not in control. Because this was a different kind of accident; not a random act but an overreaction. The episode largely lets Buffy off the hook in the end by having Ted be a robot and also completely insane and drugging people so they don’t notice, but the middle section is heavy. We know that Buffy was provoked into her attack, but even then we don’t know that what she did was something that could let off the hook for a decent chunk of time.
I think that about the sticky-buns scene was when it clicked for me that the food must be part of Ted’s game. But that was after we’d seen freaky Ted, and I did remember enough of this episode to know there was a problem with Ted, so the cooking slotted into my pre-prepared hole quite easily at that point.
But I’m guessing Ted’s wiring didn’t have a lot of code for how to deal with going after a woman with a teenager, probably especially a teenage daughter. Because he pushes way too hard too fast, which highlights that there must be something else going on with Joyce for her not to tell him to go slower. If the woman had a seven year old who would be more easily plied with treats and minigolf, the game plan probably works; the programming from the 50s may have had some idea how to deal with a teenage boy (also treats); but someone as guarded as Buffy who doesn’t immediately fall under his sway he doesn’t have a plan for.
I do kind of wish that maybe at the start Buffy had been willing to give it some shot, maybe even almost fell into the trap, but it was some element of being the Slayer that made her less susceptible to the drugs or something. Because then there is a Slayer element to why he gives her a vibe he’s not giving others, but she can’t nail it down and it’s largely indistinguishable from her being standoffish to Joyce’s new boyfriend until all the pieces fall into place. What we have is so close to being that, but it doesn’t quite line up so perfectly.
I am a little surprised Snyder wasn’t all over this as soon as it happened, seems like something he’d jump on. I mean, the guy has decided to make teenagers in general and one sixteen year old girl in specific his mortal enemy.
Flipside, I do like that it’s left ambiguous whether Joyce was going to cover for Buffy or not. I don’t think even she knows, she’s too in shock to have decided. And I like the way it’s incorporated that Buffy being the Slayer is working against her (in that she doesn’t bruise) but her being a teenage girl is important in people thinking it had to be an accident even if it wasn’t as provoked as she’s saying.
I finding myself with a couple thoughts about Giles’ role in this one (within Buffy’s story I mean, his own side plot is…fine), but I can’t seem to force them together even though they kind of are similar. So I may have to repeat some bits in the next couple points.
Again, I am surprised by how much I’m already shipping this. I said from the start that I didn’t really expect it to come back to me until s3, but holy smokes Batman I can’t stop. I’m going to be hopeless by Helpless. Right now we’re still in the acorns stage. Their relationship is really hard to define so you see what your goggles tell you is there, and I see shippy. Not in the ‘kiss already’ or ‘get married now and have lots of babies’ way, but in the ‘I have a lot of feelings and a blog so I’m going to talk about it’ way.
Because he runs up to her the same way Xander and Willow do, except you know he isn’t in denial like they are. He’s not expecting a supernatural explanation, and he can tell at a glance how much she’s hurting. There’s so little he can do; he doesn’t know how this is going to shake out; he can’t even hug her because they’re in the crowded hallway; even though you know that he was the first person they were directed to talk to about Buffy. Also I really want more details on how that interview went, and whether he gave this glowing response that no other teacher is going to, or whether he got flustered and managed to make things worse because he knows Buffy’s temper and what she’s capable of physically. But Giles is just there, and on her side, never giving her reason to doubt that he’s in her corner.
The fact that Buffy doesn’t turn to Angel in this is kind of interesting writing choice. This ends up being about the support Buffy gets from her friends rather than what kind of sympathy Angel (the killer) could offer. I don’t know exactly what to read into that, either in character or on a meta level, but I think it is an interesting choice. It means that when Buffy’s main motication was to get out of the house, she went to school instead of going to talk to Angel about what had happened. Because Xander, Willow, Giles, and Cordelia (to lesser impact on Buffy) are people; they’re her people, and they are the people who love and support her through this. As they will be for the rest of the season.
My other Giles point is even more meta. Because I do see what they were doing paralleling the opening with Joyce and the end with Giles/Jenny but…in so much of what doesn’t happen in this story I’m finding my official B/G shipper ‘father’s love my ass’ card (and I’ll just keep it handy). I ship it and definitely don’t see him in a father’s role, and I kept expecting the show to do something that pulled Giles into a conversation about Joyce and Ted. Something like an offhand comment that ‘it could be worse, she could be dating Giles’ or in all the ‘who would be okay for your mom’ talk for Giles to come up. And he doesn’t. The place where Giles is involved is more of a parallel to Buffy talking with Angel about Ted than it is suggesting she sees Giles as the father figure in her life.
What am I shipping?
I’m not shipping Xander/Cordy exactly, but they seemed more fun in this episode than last time.
And while I don’t really like the stuff at the park between Giles and Jenny, their opening conversation is very sweet and I am glad they did at least briefly make up.
