Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3x01 – Anne
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tori_reviewsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: 3x01 – Anne
The all too familiar thing to say about this episode is that I have kind of complicated feelings about it. And that is true, but in kind of unusual way. This is never going to be one of my favorite episodes, but quality-wise it is way up there.
This is right smack in Whedon’s wheelhouse. It’s a character piece with a full arc to it, actually handles its barely-a-metaphor pretty well, throws in just enough plot to support the more important things, and where it does come to action it’s still telling a story with the action.
I’m not quite sure what symbolism they were going for by Buffy leading a revolt with a hammer and sickle, but it was too deliberate not to be intentional. I’m also a bit bothered by them not making much effort to bring more people along on the jailbreak; I don’t think that much less of them for it, the action was going on long enough that others could have joined in the attempt but most of them are likely too far gone to take any action. Still, there are probably other portals around the world (otherwise you could not take enough people every day to keep the factories running for centuries) and it bothers me a bit that I don’t think anyone ever looks into it.
There was a time when I didn’t really get the way this episode was using time, and I still think it’s a bit flawed. If say, a year is passing in hell every hour that happens on Earth (and considering Ricky aged 50 years in a day, I think the ratio is actually more skewed), Then even if Buffy’s group was down there for a day of hell time (and it seemed more like a few hours), barely ten seconds have passed on the surface. Basically, at that point, you’re practically meeting yourself coming. Quite frankly, Lily should have been down there for a couple of days before Buffy even followed her a few seconds later.
Basically, how do you coordinate plans with the people sent to Earth, if by the time they can respond and entire generation has passed in hell? Yes, if you come down to hell you have all the time in that world before you need to be back to work in the morning, but time dilation like that does funny things.
Also, what are they building down there in Mordor? Are they planning to invade Earth? Are they at war with another hell dimension? Because even if they set up the Family Home front a month ago, there have been centuries of time to prepare for whatever’s supposed to happen in hell world.
I haven’t really brought it up, but the thought has crossed my mind in other episodes that Buffy is constantly wearing a cross. Usually pretty obviously, we’re not talking dainty little accent necklaces or Scully keepsake looks. We know that it’s a Slayer thing, last second defense and just symbolically being prepared. But what do other people think when they see her wearing it? That she’s really into religion? You’d almost think that at some point Joyce would have wondered about it.
I bring it up now because, considering the angle the demons are taking here, that she seems to have some sort of religious faith might have drawn some attention. And compared to the other people who live around there, the necklaces probably have some value others would want.
Of course, the whole point of this episode is the get Buffy to *be* Buffy again, but I kind of wish we’d gotten a bit more time to see people without her. Also, I might take an AU where the rumor of the girl surviving being hit by a car filters around and brings attention to her. Because that was Buffy being Buffy, stepping in to try and save someone. She might not have been quite ready to be found, but Buffy was starting to break through Anne.
The subplots in Sunnydale never get the traction that Buffy’s LA plot does. And that’s fair, since Buffy is the main character and has the most arc that needs to be dealt with, but I do wish we could have gotten a little more context on what the others were doing. Xander and Cordy’s thing comes out of nowhere and is treated very comedically. The Oz thing just gets kind of dropped out there as an excuse why he’ll be around without much else to it. Willow clearly has a lot of feelings about what’s going on in Scoobies without Buffy land, but we kind of gloss over it here.
I do think we get about enough of Joyce’s feelings on the situation, but her feelings are pretty overt and give the impression of being stuck in place for months since last episode.
Giles is sort of an odd duck in that regard. I think we do see how he’s been coping with Buffy’s absence, but I feel like we’re very distant from how he feels about it. In some ways that works, because we see in how he is coping that he’s not letting himself feel it a lot; finding her and bringing her home is the priority. Still, I feel as if…Giles has nothing else going on except finding Buffy; the younger Scoobies do have other stuff even if it’s underdeveloped. So the fact that we don’t get more of how Giles feels about Buffy being gone seems like we’re being kept out of something.
The scene with him and Joyce is something worth analyzing though (and look, I’ll analyze Giles plots as much as they give me). First off, I sort of feel like he and Joyce should have had this conversation before if this has been the pattern all summer. Both his reassurance that he thinks Buffy is fine wherever she is, and Joyce blaming him for putting so much on Buffy’s shoulders.
But even before that, you all might have noticed I have kind of a thing with Giles showing up at the Summers’ house, but this is basically the first time we see him interact with Joyce when he does it. And it feels unnatural somehow, it seems like he belongs less than he did when Joyce couldn’t know why he was hanging around. I don’t so much mean this in a way where Giles only fits in the house when it’s Buffy’s home (although I’m open to the reading), but that it’s interesting that the first time it could be not weird that Buffy’s librarian is coming over to the house, it’s actually super weird for the people involved.
And what I mean about being held at arm’s length regarding how Giles feels about all this, is that I don’t know where his head is in that scene. Does he blame himself so is kind of agreeing with Joyce’s accusations? Is he putting on a brave face but dying inside that he doesn’t have anything besides faith (not even Faith) to go on? Does he feel useless that he keeps chasing every lead with even the faintest opportunity to hope that this time will be different?
I understand what Joyce is dealing with. Between guilt and fear and resentment, it all makes a lot of sense that she’s stuck and wallowing. I’m sure I would be too. But I feel like there’s something key in Giles’ actions that we’re not seeing.
A few comments on technical aspects of this episode. The long take at the beginning was kind of impressive, but it also feels a little out of place. When have we ever seen Sunnydale High this busy and active? And doing it in one take makes it feel even more busy and hectic. And then contrasted with how empty Buffy’s world in LA is, and the casual way we start seeing our bad guy of the episode, it’s all very deliberate clearly, but it’s a little…insistent about its deliberate choices.
It's funny, in Firefly I think ‘hey it’s that demon preacher from Buffy,’ here I think ‘hey it’s Dobson from Firefly.’ I feel like I’ve seen him in other things too, but I can’t remember which came to mind first in those instances.
What am I shipping?
I’m still feeling Willow/Oz, but I’m not feeling Xander/Cordy. I’d kind of be open for Willow having two boyfriends, but I don’t think that would work very well for them at this point.
I could say I have Buffy/Giles feeling at how much of Giles she seems to have taken with her even when they’re not together (where else do you think she learned about exotic mushrooms or would think about tea cozies). But I’m not going to get into it too much, because next episode is Dead Man’s Party; and if memory doesn’t fail me, I’m about to take my ship into orbit so I’ll let it slide this time.
I actually think my broader shipping tastes might be settling down of late. I’m mostly just commenting on canon, or shipping Buffy/Giles. At some point I may have to retire this section, or just admit that it’s going to turn into me B/G interpretation and notes section. Maybe I would, but I will have notes on Faith coming up, so there is that.
The all too familiar thing to say about this episode is that I have kind of complicated feelings about it. And that is true, but in kind of unusual way. This is never going to be one of my favorite episodes, but quality-wise it is way up there.
This is right smack in Whedon’s wheelhouse. It’s a character piece with a full arc to it, actually handles its barely-a-metaphor pretty well, throws in just enough plot to support the more important things, and where it does come to action it’s still telling a story with the action.
I’m not quite sure what symbolism they were going for by Buffy leading a revolt with a hammer and sickle, but it was too deliberate not to be intentional. I’m also a bit bothered by them not making much effort to bring more people along on the jailbreak; I don’t think that much less of them for it, the action was going on long enough that others could have joined in the attempt but most of them are likely too far gone to take any action. Still, there are probably other portals around the world (otherwise you could not take enough people every day to keep the factories running for centuries) and it bothers me a bit that I don’t think anyone ever looks into it.
There was a time when I didn’t really get the way this episode was using time, and I still think it’s a bit flawed. If say, a year is passing in hell every hour that happens on Earth (and considering Ricky aged 50 years in a day, I think the ratio is actually more skewed), Then even if Buffy’s group was down there for a day of hell time (and it seemed more like a few hours), barely ten seconds have passed on the surface. Basically, at that point, you’re practically meeting yourself coming. Quite frankly, Lily should have been down there for a couple of days before Buffy even followed her a few seconds later.
Basically, how do you coordinate plans with the people sent to Earth, if by the time they can respond and entire generation has passed in hell? Yes, if you come down to hell you have all the time in that world before you need to be back to work in the morning, but time dilation like that does funny things.
Also, what are they building down there in Mordor? Are they planning to invade Earth? Are they at war with another hell dimension? Because even if they set up the Family Home front a month ago, there have been centuries of time to prepare for whatever’s supposed to happen in hell world.
I haven’t really brought it up, but the thought has crossed my mind in other episodes that Buffy is constantly wearing a cross. Usually pretty obviously, we’re not talking dainty little accent necklaces or Scully keepsake looks. We know that it’s a Slayer thing, last second defense and just symbolically being prepared. But what do other people think when they see her wearing it? That she’s really into religion? You’d almost think that at some point Joyce would have wondered about it.
I bring it up now because, considering the angle the demons are taking here, that she seems to have some sort of religious faith might have drawn some attention. And compared to the other people who live around there, the necklaces probably have some value others would want.
Of course, the whole point of this episode is the get Buffy to *be* Buffy again, but I kind of wish we’d gotten a bit more time to see people without her. Also, I might take an AU where the rumor of the girl surviving being hit by a car filters around and brings attention to her. Because that was Buffy being Buffy, stepping in to try and save someone. She might not have been quite ready to be found, but Buffy was starting to break through Anne.
The subplots in Sunnydale never get the traction that Buffy’s LA plot does. And that’s fair, since Buffy is the main character and has the most arc that needs to be dealt with, but I do wish we could have gotten a little more context on what the others were doing. Xander and Cordy’s thing comes out of nowhere and is treated very comedically. The Oz thing just gets kind of dropped out there as an excuse why he’ll be around without much else to it. Willow clearly has a lot of feelings about what’s going on in Scoobies without Buffy land, but we kind of gloss over it here.
I do think we get about enough of Joyce’s feelings on the situation, but her feelings are pretty overt and give the impression of being stuck in place for months since last episode.
Giles is sort of an odd duck in that regard. I think we do see how he’s been coping with Buffy’s absence, but I feel like we’re very distant from how he feels about it. In some ways that works, because we see in how he is coping that he’s not letting himself feel it a lot; finding her and bringing her home is the priority. Still, I feel as if…Giles has nothing else going on except finding Buffy; the younger Scoobies do have other stuff even if it’s underdeveloped. So the fact that we don’t get more of how Giles feels about Buffy being gone seems like we’re being kept out of something.
The scene with him and Joyce is something worth analyzing though (and look, I’ll analyze Giles plots as much as they give me). First off, I sort of feel like he and Joyce should have had this conversation before if this has been the pattern all summer. Both his reassurance that he thinks Buffy is fine wherever she is, and Joyce blaming him for putting so much on Buffy’s shoulders.
But even before that, you all might have noticed I have kind of a thing with Giles showing up at the Summers’ house, but this is basically the first time we see him interact with Joyce when he does it. And it feels unnatural somehow, it seems like he belongs less than he did when Joyce couldn’t know why he was hanging around. I don’t so much mean this in a way where Giles only fits in the house when it’s Buffy’s home (although I’m open to the reading), but that it’s interesting that the first time it could be not weird that Buffy’s librarian is coming over to the house, it’s actually super weird for the people involved.
And what I mean about being held at arm’s length regarding how Giles feels about all this, is that I don’t know where his head is in that scene. Does he blame himself so is kind of agreeing with Joyce’s accusations? Is he putting on a brave face but dying inside that he doesn’t have anything besides faith (not even Faith) to go on? Does he feel useless that he keeps chasing every lead with even the faintest opportunity to hope that this time will be different?
I understand what Joyce is dealing with. Between guilt and fear and resentment, it all makes a lot of sense that she’s stuck and wallowing. I’m sure I would be too. But I feel like there’s something key in Giles’ actions that we’re not seeing.
A few comments on technical aspects of this episode. The long take at the beginning was kind of impressive, but it also feels a little out of place. When have we ever seen Sunnydale High this busy and active? And doing it in one take makes it feel even more busy and hectic. And then contrasted with how empty Buffy’s world in LA is, and the casual way we start seeing our bad guy of the episode, it’s all very deliberate clearly, but it’s a little…insistent about its deliberate choices.
It's funny, in Firefly I think ‘hey it’s that demon preacher from Buffy,’ here I think ‘hey it’s Dobson from Firefly.’ I feel like I’ve seen him in other things too, but I can’t remember which came to mind first in those instances.
What am I shipping?
I’m still feeling Willow/Oz, but I’m not feeling Xander/Cordy. I’d kind of be open for Willow having two boyfriends, but I don’t think that would work very well for them at this point.
I could say I have Buffy/Giles feeling at how much of Giles she seems to have taken with her even when they’re not together (where else do you think she learned about exotic mushrooms or would think about tea cozies). But I’m not going to get into it too much, because next episode is Dead Man’s Party; and if memory doesn’t fail me, I’m about to take my ship into orbit so I’ll let it slide this time.
I actually think my broader shipping tastes might be settling down of late. I’m mostly just commenting on canon, or shipping Buffy/Giles. At some point I may have to retire this section, or just admit that it’s going to turn into me B/G interpretation and notes section. Maybe I would, but I will have notes on Faith coming up, so there is that.
