Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x14 – Innocence
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tori_reviewsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: 2x14 – Innocence
With the possible exception of the RTD era of Doctor Who, nothing plays my emotions as well as this show. How, after all this time, does this writing still play me like a fiddle? I know I’m responding exactly the way I’m supposed to in most scenes, but it pulls it off so well that…if it does feel emotionally manipulative, it feels like earned emotional manipulations.
It doesn’t hurt that SMG does such good cry-acting, that if the story makes Buffy hurt I’m likely to go with it (when it’s not about something I can’t get on board with. Just covering my bases in the event that later seasons don’t pull the same trick). But I’m also right there with it on the fun stuff, and the sweet stuff. I tell you, it plays me like a fiddle.
This is one of those episodes where I know why my reviews of good episodes are often shorter than the reviews of bad ones (although I do have things to say here). Because this is so obviously good, that I don’t need to point out why it’s good. You can go watch the episode for yourself. Hell, don’t go watch it, but if you’ve seen it before, you probably remember it being really good and I’m saying it still is.
(In spite of the fact that I did find plenty to say about this one.)
I guess the only complaint I would have is the timing of events towards the climax. The Scoobies were going to go try Xander’s idea late at night; then it’s the next day when Buffy and Jenny are facing off and running around, then it’s night again when the Scoobies come back with the rocket launcher. Was there a long drive to get to the army base, and they all ditched out on a day of school? Except it was also night when they were at the base and it wasn’t two days’ worth of missing time. No matter how long it was, that would have been a slightly awkward drive out, and then back with a rocket launcher they probably don’t know how to transport.
I know I watched at least the first 2-2.5 seasons in my last rewatch a decade ago, but I must not have been paying close attention, because I’m seeing stuff here that I hadn’t connected the dots on before. Where the sequence of events that we’re shown is not quite what my brain files them as. Like the fact that this is the most direct we’ve ever seen Willow be with Xander about her feelings (barring maybe Prophesy Girl). In my head, it’s so obvious that Willow is into him, and we’ve seen them skirt around there being potential from both of them, but she’s never actually put herself out there as clearly as she does here.
Also. I’d never picked up on the irony before that Jenny claims she was sent there to watch Buffy. It would make more sense to say that Buffy became part of her watching Angel; but, in front of Buffy’s Watcher, Jenny says that she’s there to watch Buffy. I doubt the implication was meant to be that she got close to Giles because he was also Watching Buffy; but I wouldn’t blame Giles if he thought so at least a little bit.
I do think that’s something of another problem with the order events ended up in. Because Buffy shouldn’t have been able to get away with threatening Jenny in front of the class of civilians who don’t know what’s up. It really feels like the writing had to add another day into the Fang Gang side of things (killing off the old guy and it being the right time of night for people to be at the movies) so the Scoobies’ plot got off balance. The scene with Jenny makes way more sense if Buffy marches back into the library after the gang has left and it’s just her, Giles, and Jenny. While it does end up possible to justify why Giles would be in the computer classroom (as he still needs to be in the scene), the tight shots make me think they couldn’t quite explain why everyone else left the room for the showdown, but we’re supposed to assume it happened.
And the quiet acting in the scene where the kick Jenny out of the club. The way Giles takes a second to think, and then chooses Buffy already makes me emotional; but then Buffy’s look like she can’t quite believe he’s taking her side just got to me.
I certainly didn’t remember that Dru just lays out there that Angel…us (I’m never sure how to refer to him at times like this, this season the dialog is not as deliberately distinct as it will be later on…as I recall) that he’s doing to Buffy what he did to Dru so long ago. That he likes to play games with his victims. That the kill isn’t what he’s there for.
Which means that even in this episode, the Judge’s reaction to Angelus doesn’t make a ton of sense. Angelus has no less humanity than Spike and Dru, and the Judge could have burned them. Or at least he said that at first, he did let them live after that I suppose. It’s clearly a Worf effect thing, Spike and Dru have been our threats this season but Angel is going to be worse, see how the Judge couldn’t burn him at all.
The whole plan with the Judge doesn’t quite work. In a way it could be a remnant of the fact that they were going to kill of Spike a couple episodes ago. The fact that he manages not to be found in the factory would also suggest that. Because the writing of Spike will decide (and might have been his original characterization) that he doesn’t really want to end the world. He put a lot of work into bringing the Judge together for a guy that even at this point I’m inclined to think didn’t want to end the world. Dru is crazy enough to do it, distracting enough that she might persuade people to just kind of go along with it thinking it was just a bit of fun, and in the scenario where Spike is dead she might even have extra reason to be trying to end the world.
I do think the metaphor of what Buffy is dealing with this episode would have been stronger if we didn’t know all the way through what had happened. If there was any question that this could be real, and Angel just turned out to be a jerk somehow after all his sweet talk last episode (and other episodes). I also think the end fight would have worked a bit better if Angel had been in vamp face for a good chunk of the fight but then he went back to being Angel as a manipulation trick so Buffy wouldn’t stake him. Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway (I mean, she doesn’t), but I think it would have hit harder for me if it had played out that way.
Unless he did at least in part, I kept getting distracted by the Quest for Camelot posters at the theater. As it’s the only thing being advertised, I guess it could have been product placement, which would have been annoying then, but it’s kind of charmingly nostalgic now. At least it’s not dialog, shows rarely find a way to make that charming.
I could make jokes about DB’s acting here, but I’m not in the mood. If it doesn’t get better I likely will, I can’t remember. But JL is impressing me as Dru now that she’s up and active. There’s such a physicality to her performance that I don’t know that I’d fully appreciated before.
I also could give my thoughts on the Curse, and how it ought to have been made a bit more clear for the viewer (and maybe characters, at least later) that it wasn’t just about sex. Because I think a lot of writing in the future seems to act like it was mostly sex (or it’s surprising when just sex doesn’t turn him). But…again, I don’t really care to go over it right now.
What am I shipping?
Fang Gang, gang bang FTW. Dru just wants to fuck her boys (who may also want to fuck each other).
Also Willow and Oz are adorable, and you can kind of see the moment it goes from her wanting to even the score to her just wanting to kiss Oz. Yet, this ep also still does things for my Willow/Xander heart. On rare occasion, I am a multi shipper.
I’m not quite drawing hearts in Giles’ eyes in the last scene with Buffy; that’s not what that scene is, even to me. But acorns definitely, in almost the original use of the term. It’s a car full of acorns. And not a bad parallel to how she was there for him at the end of Dark Age.
With the possible exception of the RTD era of Doctor Who, nothing plays my emotions as well as this show. How, after all this time, does this writing still play me like a fiddle? I know I’m responding exactly the way I’m supposed to in most scenes, but it pulls it off so well that…if it does feel emotionally manipulative, it feels like earned emotional manipulations.
It doesn’t hurt that SMG does such good cry-acting, that if the story makes Buffy hurt I’m likely to go with it (when it’s not about something I can’t get on board with. Just covering my bases in the event that later seasons don’t pull the same trick). But I’m also right there with it on the fun stuff, and the sweet stuff. I tell you, it plays me like a fiddle.
This is one of those episodes where I know why my reviews of good episodes are often shorter than the reviews of bad ones (although I do have things to say here). Because this is so obviously good, that I don’t need to point out why it’s good. You can go watch the episode for yourself. Hell, don’t go watch it, but if you’ve seen it before, you probably remember it being really good and I’m saying it still is.
(In spite of the fact that I did find plenty to say about this one.)
I guess the only complaint I would have is the timing of events towards the climax. The Scoobies were going to go try Xander’s idea late at night; then it’s the next day when Buffy and Jenny are facing off and running around, then it’s night again when the Scoobies come back with the rocket launcher. Was there a long drive to get to the army base, and they all ditched out on a day of school? Except it was also night when they were at the base and it wasn’t two days’ worth of missing time. No matter how long it was, that would have been a slightly awkward drive out, and then back with a rocket launcher they probably don’t know how to transport.
I know I watched at least the first 2-2.5 seasons in my last rewatch a decade ago, but I must not have been paying close attention, because I’m seeing stuff here that I hadn’t connected the dots on before. Where the sequence of events that we’re shown is not quite what my brain files them as. Like the fact that this is the most direct we’ve ever seen Willow be with Xander about her feelings (barring maybe Prophesy Girl). In my head, it’s so obvious that Willow is into him, and we’ve seen them skirt around there being potential from both of them, but she’s never actually put herself out there as clearly as she does here.
Also. I’d never picked up on the irony before that Jenny claims she was sent there to watch Buffy. It would make more sense to say that Buffy became part of her watching Angel; but, in front of Buffy’s Watcher, Jenny says that she’s there to watch Buffy. I doubt the implication was meant to be that she got close to Giles because he was also Watching Buffy; but I wouldn’t blame Giles if he thought so at least a little bit.
I do think that’s something of another problem with the order events ended up in. Because Buffy shouldn’t have been able to get away with threatening Jenny in front of the class of civilians who don’t know what’s up. It really feels like the writing had to add another day into the Fang Gang side of things (killing off the old guy and it being the right time of night for people to be at the movies) so the Scoobies’ plot got off balance. The scene with Jenny makes way more sense if Buffy marches back into the library after the gang has left and it’s just her, Giles, and Jenny. While it does end up possible to justify why Giles would be in the computer classroom (as he still needs to be in the scene), the tight shots make me think they couldn’t quite explain why everyone else left the room for the showdown, but we’re supposed to assume it happened.
And the quiet acting in the scene where the kick Jenny out of the club. The way Giles takes a second to think, and then chooses Buffy already makes me emotional; but then Buffy’s look like she can’t quite believe he’s taking her side just got to me.
I certainly didn’t remember that Dru just lays out there that Angel…us (I’m never sure how to refer to him at times like this, this season the dialog is not as deliberately distinct as it will be later on…as I recall) that he’s doing to Buffy what he did to Dru so long ago. That he likes to play games with his victims. That the kill isn’t what he’s there for.
Which means that even in this episode, the Judge’s reaction to Angelus doesn’t make a ton of sense. Angelus has no less humanity than Spike and Dru, and the Judge could have burned them. Or at least he said that at first, he did let them live after that I suppose. It’s clearly a Worf effect thing, Spike and Dru have been our threats this season but Angel is going to be worse, see how the Judge couldn’t burn him at all.
The whole plan with the Judge doesn’t quite work. In a way it could be a remnant of the fact that they were going to kill of Spike a couple episodes ago. The fact that he manages not to be found in the factory would also suggest that. Because the writing of Spike will decide (and might have been his original characterization) that he doesn’t really want to end the world. He put a lot of work into bringing the Judge together for a guy that even at this point I’m inclined to think didn’t want to end the world. Dru is crazy enough to do it, distracting enough that she might persuade people to just kind of go along with it thinking it was just a bit of fun, and in the scenario where Spike is dead she might even have extra reason to be trying to end the world.
I do think the metaphor of what Buffy is dealing with this episode would have been stronger if we didn’t know all the way through what had happened. If there was any question that this could be real, and Angel just turned out to be a jerk somehow after all his sweet talk last episode (and other episodes). I also think the end fight would have worked a bit better if Angel had been in vamp face for a good chunk of the fight but then he went back to being Angel as a manipulation trick so Buffy wouldn’t stake him. Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway (I mean, she doesn’t), but I think it would have hit harder for me if it had played out that way.
Unless he did at least in part, I kept getting distracted by the Quest for Camelot posters at the theater. As it’s the only thing being advertised, I guess it could have been product placement, which would have been annoying then, but it’s kind of charmingly nostalgic now. At least it’s not dialog, shows rarely find a way to make that charming.
I could make jokes about DB’s acting here, but I’m not in the mood. If it doesn’t get better I likely will, I can’t remember. But JL is impressing me as Dru now that she’s up and active. There’s such a physicality to her performance that I don’t know that I’d fully appreciated before.
I also could give my thoughts on the Curse, and how it ought to have been made a bit more clear for the viewer (and maybe characters, at least later) that it wasn’t just about sex. Because I think a lot of writing in the future seems to act like it was mostly sex (or it’s surprising when just sex doesn’t turn him). But…again, I don’t really care to go over it right now.
What am I shipping?
Fang Gang, gang bang FTW. Dru just wants to fuck her boys (who may also want to fuck each other).
Also Willow and Oz are adorable, and you can kind of see the moment it goes from her wanting to even the score to her just wanting to kiss Oz. Yet, this ep also still does things for my Willow/Xander heart. On rare occasion, I am a multi shipper.
I’m not quite drawing hearts in Giles’ eyes in the last scene with Buffy; that’s not what that scene is, even to me. But acorns definitely, in almost the original use of the term. It’s a car full of acorns. And not a bad parallel to how she was there for him at the end of Dark Age.
