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tori_reviewsBuffy the Vampire Slayer: 3x14 – Bad Girls
This is kind of a strange one. Because I know that I love it, it has so much good in it and so much that specifically appeals to me, that it would be all but impossible for me not to love it. And yet I’m not sure it actually works all that well. A lot of things, even ones I like, feel very poorly realized.
The most egregious example for me is Faith grabbing Buffy out of class. The scene gets off to a bad start; even though Buffy is talking fairly quietly, she is still talking about Slayer stuff in an otherwise very quiet room. And then somehow nobody notices that Faith just pops up at the window and Buffy leaves with her? Aside from the fact that everyone in that room now has to think Buffy and Faith are dating, I think somebody would have commented on the interruption and behavior.
While a more minor problem with that scene, something has occurred to me on the rewatch. Buffy is 18 now. This should be obvious to someone as invested in Helpless as me, but on this round I remember that a lot of how they bullied Snyder into letting her back into school was that as a minor it was required. Well, Buffy’s not a minor any more (this is also relevant to the scene with the cops), and we never saw a full resolution to the things Buffy was supposed to do to stay in school, so I feel like Snyder might be looking for something to get her with so that he can kick her out again. And sneaking out in the middle of the day, in the middle of class, in the middle of a test might get his attention in a way that could have consequences (but I don’t think are among the Consequences next time).
And, of course I like a lot of stuff around that moment, but doing this more analytically, it’s hard to ignore that a key structure of the scene doesn’t work at all.
There is a lot about this episode that relies on some heavy coincidence that things happen in the order they do, or people make possible but not probable choices in how to handle situations. A lot of it involves the villains and why things just sort of happen now. And things like why they didn’t go right for the right tomb if they knew where the amulet was.
There’s another aspect to the flaws in this episode that is similar to what happened in Zeppo. It’s lesser here, because there’s no true comedy plot messing with the tone, but people’s (mostly Buffy and Faith’s) behavior and mindset seems fairly over-exaggerated and so comes on too abruptly. Neither of them is OOC exactly, but I feel like there’s some bizarre point of view on them as characters that feels like elements that would normally be dynamic are a bit shallow.
That said, I’m not sure where to lay the blame, but Faith is way over the top in this one. My inclination was to say Dushku was the problem, but since the problem with Faith’s presentation is also a problem with Buffy (just somewhat lesser with her), I definitely don’t think it’s all on her; maybe not even that much of it. They’re just going too big, especially when they’re playing off each other, which they are a lot in this ep.
Also, since I actually considered Zeppo this time instead of my brain skimming from Helpless to this ep, I have a bit more reaction to the Willow and Buffy interactions here. That revolve around the fact the Buffy is basically treating Willow the same way they treated Xander last ep (although really only Buffy, everyone else just followed her lead). Considered one direction, that’s odd because Willow has shown that she can be good to have around in a fight, more than last episode acted like Xander could do. Considered another way, it says something odd about Willow that she’s resentful now that she’s the one being told she’s not helpful enough, when she went along with it with Xander.
Which makes me think there is something else odd about Zeppo, that there aren’t consequences to them cutting Xander out of the main plot of the episode; they’re actually better off for ignoring him since his plot stopped the bombing. Xander being treated as lesser-than is shown as funny; while Willow being treated that way is shown as mean behavior by Buffy. It’s actually fairly similar to ‘Buffy has a new boyfriend/hyper-fixation/internal focus’ behavior in later seasons, which may not be helping my opinion of her behavior here.
It also comes on too fast. We haven’t seen Buffy and Faith’s dynamic as anything like this until now. Again, it’s not unreasonable that this could be their dynamic, but it hasn’t been up until now. The last time their interactions played any part in the story was Amends, where Buffy wasn’t all the interested in spending extra time with Faith. Before that was Revelations which wasn’t great for their relationship.
But, even getting past the lack of buildup, Buffy’s behavior here reads…still not out of character, but dangerous and shallow. Sometimes it’s shallow in an in-character way that she’s giving into peer pressure and falling in with a bad seed so she’s being shallow. But other times it’s the Zeppo thing, where it shallows out her regular characterization so that the contrast is sharper when it falls apart.
Although…this may actually jive with something I was thinking was being treated shallowly (I’m not sure if it makes it better or makes it all shallow though). I was thinking that there isn’t enough weight put on Buffy getting drowned again; and in some ways treating it shallowly while actually bringing it up might be the worst way to handle it. But…Buffy does go off the deep end a lot more obviously after it happens. In the first third or so of the episode, Buffy is enjoying Faith’s zest for life but not really buying into it. Then, after the fight in the sewers/getting drowned, Buffy goes all in on Faith’s attitude; leaving school, getting on the boys at the Bronze, ignoring that she shouldn’t be all over Angel the way she is, and getting talked into the break-in.
So I’m saying this could be seen as sort of an even more truncated When She Was Bad. Buffy is ‘dealing’ with how close she came to dying by embracing Faith’s way of living. I think there’s even something to be said for her not getting the chance to hash things out with Giles before Faith shows up and tempts Buffy into action instead of talk. And had things not gotten worse as soon as they did, Buffy could have ended up spiraling the way she did after the Master.
Unfortunately, while this reading is taking shape fairly easily (and I may expand on it), I can’t in good conscious claim I think it was what the writing was going for. The clearer lens to look at it with, is that it’s about how snarky overconfidence leads to tragedy. Because there is a lot of snarky over-confidence in this one. However, one out of step point with this as morality play is that Giles really picks up the snarky baton after the episode has hit its serious drop. And he’s basically framed as being right. Because Wesley is oh so clearly wrong.
The thing is, I like Wesley. And I don’t mean, I eventually come to like Wesley after all his character work in Angel. I like him from the start, but it is different than it will be later. Here, I like him as a presence in the story to shake up the dynamics and the snarky side of Giles he brings out and as a way to cause so very much Buffy/Giles adorableness as they form a wall of loving partnership against the new guy. Wes doesn’t really interact with anyone but Buffy and Giles (with brief interactions with Faith and Angel), but his inclusion in the story has a lot of potential when it comes to other characters. The gang has never really included someone that was the outsider before or who they wanted off the team but stuck around. Cordelia might be the closest (and I’m a little tired of Cordy just showing up to be mean for a scene or two each episode but not be very important otherwise), maybe Jenny if you stretch my meaning, but the team has always been happy to have each other and trusting each other with everything going on. Wes has the potential to muck that up a lot with his desire for rules and predictable behavior.
Even if things didn’t go off the rails so quickly after he arrived. And he is most definitely not prepared for the mess that’s been started.
I’m pretty sure we get more insight into what Alan was doing in the next episode, so I’ll refrain from asking what he was doing there aside from being a target for the episode to turn serious on. But the Mayor does raise the question of how the sword-vamp got all the way into the liquor cabinet and Alan is acting a bit suspicious; was he trying to put a stop to the ascension, but had waited too long. (As a note for fic or just making a timeline, the end of this episode should be 100 days pre the ascension/graduation, so keep that in mind, me.)
For this episode, my comments are that Buffy’s reaction is set up for later development. We see during the arrest scenes, Buffy stands down from the cops almost immediately (Buffy was no doubt taught to have more respect for police than Faith was), and after the crash she wants to call for the police/EMTs and has to be talked out of sticking around (considering her behavior, I’m a little surprised the cops didn’t get names from them, hence my comment on finding out Buffy’s not a minor). That wasn’t quite enough to snap Buffy out of Faith’s spiral; but Alan’s death was. Buffy is Buffy again after it; freaked and scared and upset, but Buffy rather than Faith. (She then is snapped out of that potential mental spiral because she’s told Giles needs rescuing. Deal with death later, save Giles now.)
Faith’s reaction to Alan is harder for me to process. By the last scene of the episode when she claims she doesn’t care, she’s basically just snapped. Where Buffy spent time after the killing running off to save people (one of which she likes) and stop Balthazar, Faith spent it disposing of a body. But we do get the scene of Faith staring down at Alan’s body and I’m not sure where her mind is at that point. She seems disturbed, in a way that she could come back from, but she doesn’t. Instead she apparently gets serious and gets rid of the body (not for very long as I recall, but that’s for next time).
I think there are some points in there, but some definitely got away from me.
What am I shipping?
Look, I held this back until this section, because I know it’s going to seem like a digression, and it may be a bit self-indulgent, but it does speak to my shipping habits. One of my favorite May/Coulson moments is one I don’t think I ever see talked about and we don’t actually see happen. Late in 1x17, at the end Garrett’s big monolog (the ‘I know you’d follow him to the grave’ monolog), he’s got the three main cast members at gunpoint, but standing apart from each other; and May’s in handcuffs that Coulson explicitly refused to take off her less than ten minutes ago. Skye and Ward are off to blow the power center, and their part of the mission succeeds. So the lights go out, for about ten seconds before the emergency lights come on; and when they do May’s cuffs are in Coulson’s hand so hers are free and he has a bludgeoning weapon.
Meaning, that in the dark, almost entirely unprepared for their current situation, with Coulson still completely pissed at her for the TAHITI spying; they reached out into the darkness, knowing the other would be there, that he would be willing and able to take the cuffs off, and they’d stand a better chance fighting back together than apart. That is the kind of partnership, love, trust, and understanding that is shipping catnip to me.
And we get a similar moment with Buffy and Giles in this one. Buffy didn’t even have a sword when Giles turned, sticking out his hands behind his back for her to cut him free (a more dangerous maneuver that unlocking cuffs), but he knows she can and will do it. And she does it smoothly enough that is seems perfectly coordinated. Which, sure, it is choreographed if you want to be Doyalist, but it works with an in character reading too.
On its own, that might not even mean that much, but they are so very adorable this episode, so that capping off with an ultimate partnership moment is just gravy.
As you might notice, I’m a little torn of Buffy/Faith in this one. There is most definitely a queer reading, that might even be the only way to read it, but…I don’t like them as a couple. They clearly feed into each other’s dangerous traits, and it especially seems like a high for Buffy that isn’t sustainable for her for very long.
Besides, I’m more here for Buffy/Willow anyway. I like the good ones. I find the staging even suits the reading, that Buffy’s gotten swept up with the bad girl when she’s got a good girl who’s waiting at home.
I don’t remember why now, but I do remember clearly that there was a point in this episode that I had a sudden hankering for Joyce/Wesley. I’m betting I’d have to write that myself. As much as one can usually count on the internet to provide for any ship (especially in a fandom this old and multi-shipped), I’m not sure that one has ever been a thing.
This is kind of a strange one. Because I know that I love it, it has so much good in it and so much that specifically appeals to me, that it would be all but impossible for me not to love it. And yet I’m not sure it actually works all that well. A lot of things, even ones I like, feel very poorly realized.
The most egregious example for me is Faith grabbing Buffy out of class. The scene gets off to a bad start; even though Buffy is talking fairly quietly, she is still talking about Slayer stuff in an otherwise very quiet room. And then somehow nobody notices that Faith just pops up at the window and Buffy leaves with her? Aside from the fact that everyone in that room now has to think Buffy and Faith are dating, I think somebody would have commented on the interruption and behavior.
While a more minor problem with that scene, something has occurred to me on the rewatch. Buffy is 18 now. This should be obvious to someone as invested in Helpless as me, but on this round I remember that a lot of how they bullied Snyder into letting her back into school was that as a minor it was required. Well, Buffy’s not a minor any more (this is also relevant to the scene with the cops), and we never saw a full resolution to the things Buffy was supposed to do to stay in school, so I feel like Snyder might be looking for something to get her with so that he can kick her out again. And sneaking out in the middle of the day, in the middle of class, in the middle of a test might get his attention in a way that could have consequences (but I don’t think are among the Consequences next time).
And, of course I like a lot of stuff around that moment, but doing this more analytically, it’s hard to ignore that a key structure of the scene doesn’t work at all.
There is a lot about this episode that relies on some heavy coincidence that things happen in the order they do, or people make possible but not probable choices in how to handle situations. A lot of it involves the villains and why things just sort of happen now. And things like why they didn’t go right for the right tomb if they knew where the amulet was.
There’s another aspect to the flaws in this episode that is similar to what happened in Zeppo. It’s lesser here, because there’s no true comedy plot messing with the tone, but people’s (mostly Buffy and Faith’s) behavior and mindset seems fairly over-exaggerated and so comes on too abruptly. Neither of them is OOC exactly, but I feel like there’s some bizarre point of view on them as characters that feels like elements that would normally be dynamic are a bit shallow.
That said, I’m not sure where to lay the blame, but Faith is way over the top in this one. My inclination was to say Dushku was the problem, but since the problem with Faith’s presentation is also a problem with Buffy (just somewhat lesser with her), I definitely don’t think it’s all on her; maybe not even that much of it. They’re just going too big, especially when they’re playing off each other, which they are a lot in this ep.
Also, since I actually considered Zeppo this time instead of my brain skimming from Helpless to this ep, I have a bit more reaction to the Willow and Buffy interactions here. That revolve around the fact the Buffy is basically treating Willow the same way they treated Xander last ep (although really only Buffy, everyone else just followed her lead). Considered one direction, that’s odd because Willow has shown that she can be good to have around in a fight, more than last episode acted like Xander could do. Considered another way, it says something odd about Willow that she’s resentful now that she’s the one being told she’s not helpful enough, when she went along with it with Xander.
Which makes me think there is something else odd about Zeppo, that there aren’t consequences to them cutting Xander out of the main plot of the episode; they’re actually better off for ignoring him since his plot stopped the bombing. Xander being treated as lesser-than is shown as funny; while Willow being treated that way is shown as mean behavior by Buffy. It’s actually fairly similar to ‘Buffy has a new boyfriend/hyper-fixation/internal focus’ behavior in later seasons, which may not be helping my opinion of her behavior here.
It also comes on too fast. We haven’t seen Buffy and Faith’s dynamic as anything like this until now. Again, it’s not unreasonable that this could be their dynamic, but it hasn’t been up until now. The last time their interactions played any part in the story was Amends, where Buffy wasn’t all the interested in spending extra time with Faith. Before that was Revelations which wasn’t great for their relationship.
But, even getting past the lack of buildup, Buffy’s behavior here reads…still not out of character, but dangerous and shallow. Sometimes it’s shallow in an in-character way that she’s giving into peer pressure and falling in with a bad seed so she’s being shallow. But other times it’s the Zeppo thing, where it shallows out her regular characterization so that the contrast is sharper when it falls apart.
Although…this may actually jive with something I was thinking was being treated shallowly (I’m not sure if it makes it better or makes it all shallow though). I was thinking that there isn’t enough weight put on Buffy getting drowned again; and in some ways treating it shallowly while actually bringing it up might be the worst way to handle it. But…Buffy does go off the deep end a lot more obviously after it happens. In the first third or so of the episode, Buffy is enjoying Faith’s zest for life but not really buying into it. Then, after the fight in the sewers/getting drowned, Buffy goes all in on Faith’s attitude; leaving school, getting on the boys at the Bronze, ignoring that she shouldn’t be all over Angel the way she is, and getting talked into the break-in.
So I’m saying this could be seen as sort of an even more truncated When She Was Bad. Buffy is ‘dealing’ with how close she came to dying by embracing Faith’s way of living. I think there’s even something to be said for her not getting the chance to hash things out with Giles before Faith shows up and tempts Buffy into action instead of talk. And had things not gotten worse as soon as they did, Buffy could have ended up spiraling the way she did after the Master.
Unfortunately, while this reading is taking shape fairly easily (and I may expand on it), I can’t in good conscious claim I think it was what the writing was going for. The clearer lens to look at it with, is that it’s about how snarky overconfidence leads to tragedy. Because there is a lot of snarky over-confidence in this one. However, one out of step point with this as morality play is that Giles really picks up the snarky baton after the episode has hit its serious drop. And he’s basically framed as being right. Because Wesley is oh so clearly wrong.
The thing is, I like Wesley. And I don’t mean, I eventually come to like Wesley after all his character work in Angel. I like him from the start, but it is different than it will be later. Here, I like him as a presence in the story to shake up the dynamics and the snarky side of Giles he brings out and as a way to cause so very much Buffy/Giles adorableness as they form a wall of loving partnership against the new guy. Wes doesn’t really interact with anyone but Buffy and Giles (with brief interactions with Faith and Angel), but his inclusion in the story has a lot of potential when it comes to other characters. The gang has never really included someone that was the outsider before or who they wanted off the team but stuck around. Cordelia might be the closest (and I’m a little tired of Cordy just showing up to be mean for a scene or two each episode but not be very important otherwise), maybe Jenny if you stretch my meaning, but the team has always been happy to have each other and trusting each other with everything going on. Wes has the potential to muck that up a lot with his desire for rules and predictable behavior.
Even if things didn’t go off the rails so quickly after he arrived. And he is most definitely not prepared for the mess that’s been started.
I’m pretty sure we get more insight into what Alan was doing in the next episode, so I’ll refrain from asking what he was doing there aside from being a target for the episode to turn serious on. But the Mayor does raise the question of how the sword-vamp got all the way into the liquor cabinet and Alan is acting a bit suspicious; was he trying to put a stop to the ascension, but had waited too long. (As a note for fic or just making a timeline, the end of this episode should be 100 days pre the ascension/graduation, so keep that in mind, me.)
For this episode, my comments are that Buffy’s reaction is set up for later development. We see during the arrest scenes, Buffy stands down from the cops almost immediately (Buffy was no doubt taught to have more respect for police than Faith was), and after the crash she wants to call for the police/EMTs and has to be talked out of sticking around (considering her behavior, I’m a little surprised the cops didn’t get names from them, hence my comment on finding out Buffy’s not a minor). That wasn’t quite enough to snap Buffy out of Faith’s spiral; but Alan’s death was. Buffy is Buffy again after it; freaked and scared and upset, but Buffy rather than Faith. (She then is snapped out of that potential mental spiral because she’s told Giles needs rescuing. Deal with death later, save Giles now.)
Faith’s reaction to Alan is harder for me to process. By the last scene of the episode when she claims she doesn’t care, she’s basically just snapped. Where Buffy spent time after the killing running off to save people (one of which she likes) and stop Balthazar, Faith spent it disposing of a body. But we do get the scene of Faith staring down at Alan’s body and I’m not sure where her mind is at that point. She seems disturbed, in a way that she could come back from, but she doesn’t. Instead she apparently gets serious and gets rid of the body (not for very long as I recall, but that’s for next time).
I think there are some points in there, but some definitely got away from me.
What am I shipping?
Look, I held this back until this section, because I know it’s going to seem like a digression, and it may be a bit self-indulgent, but it does speak to my shipping habits. One of my favorite May/Coulson moments is one I don’t think I ever see talked about and we don’t actually see happen. Late in 1x17, at the end Garrett’s big monolog (the ‘I know you’d follow him to the grave’ monolog), he’s got the three main cast members at gunpoint, but standing apart from each other; and May’s in handcuffs that Coulson explicitly refused to take off her less than ten minutes ago. Skye and Ward are off to blow the power center, and their part of the mission succeeds. So the lights go out, for about ten seconds before the emergency lights come on; and when they do May’s cuffs are in Coulson’s hand so hers are free and he has a bludgeoning weapon.
Meaning, that in the dark, almost entirely unprepared for their current situation, with Coulson still completely pissed at her for the TAHITI spying; they reached out into the darkness, knowing the other would be there, that he would be willing and able to take the cuffs off, and they’d stand a better chance fighting back together than apart. That is the kind of partnership, love, trust, and understanding that is shipping catnip to me.
And we get a similar moment with Buffy and Giles in this one. Buffy didn’t even have a sword when Giles turned, sticking out his hands behind his back for her to cut him free (a more dangerous maneuver that unlocking cuffs), but he knows she can and will do it. And she does it smoothly enough that is seems perfectly coordinated. Which, sure, it is choreographed if you want to be Doyalist, but it works with an in character reading too.
On its own, that might not even mean that much, but they are so very adorable this episode, so that capping off with an ultimate partnership moment is just gravy.
As you might notice, I’m a little torn of Buffy/Faith in this one. There is most definitely a queer reading, that might even be the only way to read it, but…I don’t like them as a couple. They clearly feed into each other’s dangerous traits, and it especially seems like a high for Buffy that isn’t sustainable for her for very long.
Besides, I’m more here for Buffy/Willow anyway. I like the good ones. I find the staging even suits the reading, that Buffy’s gotten swept up with the bad girl when she’s got a good girl who’s waiting at home.
I don’t remember why now, but I do remember clearly that there was a point in this episode that I had a sudden hankering for Joyce/Wesley. I’m betting I’d have to write that myself. As much as one can usually count on the internet to provide for any ship (especially in a fandom this old and multi-shipped), I’m not sure that one has ever been a thing.
