Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3x09 – The Wish
Aug. 15th, 2022 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: 3x09 – The Wish
After a few days of just not being that interested in watching the next episode, I came to the conclusion this might be the episode of this season that I was looking forward to the least. And I didn’t know why exactly. Yes, it’s an AU, but I’ve been known to like those; and this one is done fairly well and I certainly remembered it fairly fondly. Not a favorite, but I didn’t remember anything really wrong with it.
Turns out, my trepidation may have had some grounding. Because this episode would be pretty good (…well, maybe more like decent) fanfic, but it’s not a good episode of the show. It serves no point; yes in the long run it introduces a couple of things that will show up and/or become bigger factors, but literally no one learns anything this episode. Oz and Cordy get a little bit to do early on regarding how they are reacting to what happened, but there’s no forward motion on their arcs because they just fall to the sidelines.
I think they could have set it up with Giles remembering the other world. He was the one who smashed Anya’s necklace, so maybe some aspects of that other world stick to his brain. I’m not sure I love that as a plot, since this show likely wouldn’t explore a lot of what that means to Giles, but it would have made this episode mean something to someone. At the same time, this is kind of a stealth Giles episode, in so far as it is about anyone.
The episode gets going as a Cordelia episode, which makes sense. But she’s not even really our eyes into the new world, we get through the confusion part with her, but then she’s taken out of the story and we’re shown that new world through glimpses of several of the characters who aren’t Cordy. If that had gone full on, starting us in the Wish-verse and gradually having it revealed how that world is connected to the main universe, and in the end reveal that the apocalypse happened because Cordelia made a dumb wish, that at least would have been less confusing in focus. But, admittedly, then we don’t get the fish out of water stuff, which was, at least briefly, kind of the point.
This episode is a mess. It feels like it’s put together out of order (on moment Willow is complaining about it being daytime, the next Giles is driving home at night while vamps are rounding up people); it doesn’t show key events like Oz and Larry getting captured; it needs Anya’s necklace to be in two places at once so that Giles can take it from Cordelia’s body, but also then Anya still has her power source so it can be taken from her at the end; and that’s just the plot stuff, not even getting into how little sense the Wish-world makes (it makes no sense, and somehow less than no sense the more you zoom out from what’s going on in Sunnydale).
Also, I’m pretty sure I remember the show later implying that Anya/some of the wishes she granted were responsible for things like the Russian Revolution. So I think the writing should have made it clear that smashing the necklace undid the most recent wish (and maybe one or two others). Which would have worked fine if the chain of custody on the necklace had been as clear as it seemed for most of the episode (although I’m still not sure why Anya needed to put the necklace of Cordy to start with; aside from needs of the plot).
There are also things that you would expect to be there in an AU like this, but aren’t. No Darla. None of the Master’s early henchmen at all. No poor dead Jesse. No making an excuse to bring back Jenny. Not even reusing the demon from the beginning of the episode to show some sort of difference in how people and events are in this world.
I claim this as a stealth Giles episode, and the only other character I might be willing to put in that spot is Angel and he has even less screen time and considerably less impact on the resolution of the story (especially the real story of fixing the world). There is a lot of spectacle in seeing Xander and Willow as vampires, but aside from maybe the fact that they’re together, it’s not really saying much about who they are regardless of universe. They would have ended up dead without Buffy there saving the day, and, yeah, that makes sense. Oz is too minor of a character and almost too much the same character, to really do much analysis of what remains when the world is changed. But with Giles, and sort of Angel, there is space to take in how they change.
Is it weird that this might be the most I ship Buffy/Angel? When they’re two broken people who team up, with minimal goo-goo eyes, and Buffy doesn’t really have time for Angel’s shit…you know, maybe there’s a reason I’m pretty sure I ship Angel/Faith more than I ever did Buffy/Angel. That said, it’s only in his interactions with Buffy that we really see Angel as a character to compare with his regular character; the rest of the time he’s just a prop. By not having Darla around, or even having Angel interact with the Master, we don’t get anything new about his backstory that we don’t already know. I’d hear an argument if someone did get a good insight into Angel from this ep, but I’m not getting one.
In Giles though, we are seeing aspects of who he is that…aren’t new exactly, but have been reshuffled in a different world. In the real world, Giles can take on a supporting role and let Buffy do most of the fighting, with Willow and Xander (and Angel) for backup; but in the Wish-verse he had to take on a more active role in keeping the White Hats going. And he’s managed to (somehow) keep them going for almost two years. What’s more, he is the one person who isn’t cynical about everything; at least that’s not how I read it. You could say that he’s so burned by this world that he leaps blindly for any chance at a better one; but I see it more as an act of faith, that the other world has to be better. Because I’m me, I see a lot of that as faith in Buffy; if she had been there, the world must be better.
Still, let’s just kind of ignore that if Anya’s wishes can make this much of a change to the world, and there are many vengeance demons running around, how do you trust that anything is part of the real world?
Also maybe don’t wonder too much about what people like the Watchers Council are doing in a world where vampires more or less openly rule a town.
What am I shipping?
Not sure if I prefer vamp-Willow/vamp-Xander or vamp-Willow/Angel, but both are doing at least a little bit for me. Other than that, even broken up Oz/Willow is sweet and kind of great. And most any version of Buffy/Giles can at least draw some of my attention.
(On reflection, I’m really liking this idea of a rewrite where Jenny is still alive, she and Giles are together, and Cordelia has made it known that Jenny’s dead in the other reality. But maybe only to Jenny herself. But Jenny still tells Giles to go through with putting the world right, allowing her to die a hero this time, even if no one ever knows it.)
After a few days of just not being that interested in watching the next episode, I came to the conclusion this might be the episode of this season that I was looking forward to the least. And I didn’t know why exactly. Yes, it’s an AU, but I’ve been known to like those; and this one is done fairly well and I certainly remembered it fairly fondly. Not a favorite, but I didn’t remember anything really wrong with it.
Turns out, my trepidation may have had some grounding. Because this episode would be pretty good (…well, maybe more like decent) fanfic, but it’s not a good episode of the show. It serves no point; yes in the long run it introduces a couple of things that will show up and/or become bigger factors, but literally no one learns anything this episode. Oz and Cordy get a little bit to do early on regarding how they are reacting to what happened, but there’s no forward motion on their arcs because they just fall to the sidelines.
I think they could have set it up with Giles remembering the other world. He was the one who smashed Anya’s necklace, so maybe some aspects of that other world stick to his brain. I’m not sure I love that as a plot, since this show likely wouldn’t explore a lot of what that means to Giles, but it would have made this episode mean something to someone. At the same time, this is kind of a stealth Giles episode, in so far as it is about anyone.
The episode gets going as a Cordelia episode, which makes sense. But she’s not even really our eyes into the new world, we get through the confusion part with her, but then she’s taken out of the story and we’re shown that new world through glimpses of several of the characters who aren’t Cordy. If that had gone full on, starting us in the Wish-verse and gradually having it revealed how that world is connected to the main universe, and in the end reveal that the apocalypse happened because Cordelia made a dumb wish, that at least would have been less confusing in focus. But, admittedly, then we don’t get the fish out of water stuff, which was, at least briefly, kind of the point.
This episode is a mess. It feels like it’s put together out of order (on moment Willow is complaining about it being daytime, the next Giles is driving home at night while vamps are rounding up people); it doesn’t show key events like Oz and Larry getting captured; it needs Anya’s necklace to be in two places at once so that Giles can take it from Cordelia’s body, but also then Anya still has her power source so it can be taken from her at the end; and that’s just the plot stuff, not even getting into how little sense the Wish-world makes (it makes no sense, and somehow less than no sense the more you zoom out from what’s going on in Sunnydale).
Also, I’m pretty sure I remember the show later implying that Anya/some of the wishes she granted were responsible for things like the Russian Revolution. So I think the writing should have made it clear that smashing the necklace undid the most recent wish (and maybe one or two others). Which would have worked fine if the chain of custody on the necklace had been as clear as it seemed for most of the episode (although I’m still not sure why Anya needed to put the necklace of Cordy to start with; aside from needs of the plot).
There are also things that you would expect to be there in an AU like this, but aren’t. No Darla. None of the Master’s early henchmen at all. No poor dead Jesse. No making an excuse to bring back Jenny. Not even reusing the demon from the beginning of the episode to show some sort of difference in how people and events are in this world.
I claim this as a stealth Giles episode, and the only other character I might be willing to put in that spot is Angel and he has even less screen time and considerably less impact on the resolution of the story (especially the real story of fixing the world). There is a lot of spectacle in seeing Xander and Willow as vampires, but aside from maybe the fact that they’re together, it’s not really saying much about who they are regardless of universe. They would have ended up dead without Buffy there saving the day, and, yeah, that makes sense. Oz is too minor of a character and almost too much the same character, to really do much analysis of what remains when the world is changed. But with Giles, and sort of Angel, there is space to take in how they change.
Is it weird that this might be the most I ship Buffy/Angel? When they’re two broken people who team up, with minimal goo-goo eyes, and Buffy doesn’t really have time for Angel’s shit…you know, maybe there’s a reason I’m pretty sure I ship Angel/Faith more than I ever did Buffy/Angel. That said, it’s only in his interactions with Buffy that we really see Angel as a character to compare with his regular character; the rest of the time he’s just a prop. By not having Darla around, or even having Angel interact with the Master, we don’t get anything new about his backstory that we don’t already know. I’d hear an argument if someone did get a good insight into Angel from this ep, but I’m not getting one.
In Giles though, we are seeing aspects of who he is that…aren’t new exactly, but have been reshuffled in a different world. In the real world, Giles can take on a supporting role and let Buffy do most of the fighting, with Willow and Xander (and Angel) for backup; but in the Wish-verse he had to take on a more active role in keeping the White Hats going. And he’s managed to (somehow) keep them going for almost two years. What’s more, he is the one person who isn’t cynical about everything; at least that’s not how I read it. You could say that he’s so burned by this world that he leaps blindly for any chance at a better one; but I see it more as an act of faith, that the other world has to be better. Because I’m me, I see a lot of that as faith in Buffy; if she had been there, the world must be better.
Still, let’s just kind of ignore that if Anya’s wishes can make this much of a change to the world, and there are many vengeance demons running around, how do you trust that anything is part of the real world?
Also maybe don’t wonder too much about what people like the Watchers Council are doing in a world where vampires more or less openly rule a town.
What am I shipping?
Not sure if I prefer vamp-Willow/vamp-Xander or vamp-Willow/Angel, but both are doing at least a little bit for me. Other than that, even broken up Oz/Willow is sweet and kind of great. And most any version of Buffy/Giles can at least draw some of my attention.
(On reflection, I’m really liking this idea of a rewrite where Jenny is still alive, she and Giles are together, and Cordelia has made it known that Jenny’s dead in the other reality. But maybe only to Jenny herself. But Jenny still tells Giles to go through with putting the world right, allowing her to die a hero this time, even if no one ever knows it.)
