Listening to Fear (Rebecca Rand Kirshner)
I enjoyed the Scoobies fighting at the beginning. It contrasts with the opening of Bargaining I when Willow is showing off with the magic and the telepathy while in this she goes all wobbly knees instead.
Riley is on the downward spiral. It’s not long now until we can concentrate on enjoyable angst. Riley getting sucked off is positively icky (I was feeling chuffed that I had spotted this subtle interpretation and in the next episode Spike was saying it. Pah!).
Those stupid gifts that Willow brings make her seem like some sort of idiot. Season five so far for Willow has been a bit like Xander’s season four: poor. And we haven’t even got to Triangle yet.
I adore the scene on the roof with Tara and Willow. I like Tara’s intuition and thoughtful remark, and her not-really-that-daft names for the stars. And they are so sweet together.
I happened to look over some old posts and they were full of quotes. I'm not finding it as easy to find zingy stuff these days. This was fun though: "Festive piñata? Delicious candy?" "Something evil crashed to earth in this and then broke out and slithered away to do badness." "In all fairness, we don't really know about the slithered part." "Oh, no. I'm sure it frisked about like a fluffy lamb."
Joyce ranting, Dawn cringing, Buffy crying, it’s heart-rending: and it only gets worse. Dawn does a great job of trying to protect her mother. Spike is still being stalkery but it's worth it for SMG's delivery of "are those pictures of me?"
Joyce asks the inconceivable question: “She's not...mine, is she?”. This scene is beautiful played by Kristine Sutherland and SMG.
With Buffy stroking Dawn's hair and Tara sitting with her feet up I could get drunk very quickly if I had a drinking game. Hmm.
First of all, great job on the recaps. They're so much fun to read.
I think that Season 5 marked the first season where the Core Four suffered in likability. It wasn't the purge character assasination of Season 6 and 7, but it's clear that the Cour Four weren't as great as Season 1-4. Xander strangely alternates between being obnoxiously condescending of Anya and whipped and loserish in the relationship. Giles is quite irrelevant. He almost exists as a straight man for Anya, and never really develops this season. Buffy is quite stand-offish and not fun at all this season. She has this haughty, martyr thing going on.
And I agree with your assesment of Willow for the first half of Season 5. However, I have a weakness for Willow. She's my favorite character in the series. Plus, I think that she's the only Core Four character that actually successfully rallies at the end of the season. I loved her breakdown in The Body where she realized her childishness. She was fantastic in Tough Love. Her angst was superb. Her revenge on Glory was superb and her committment to take care of Tara for the rest of her life was awesome. And then in the last few episodes of the season, she's quite competent and adult- most notably taking charge in Weight of the World. She actually shows character development- maturity growth seperate from her popularized growth in magical powers. Then said character growth is undone in S6 and then some. But I won't get into that.
I love that Amber always sits with her legs up, even when she is doing interviews.
Even though Willow does look like a moron during the gift scene, I like, "Oh, I feel just like Santa Claus...except thinner, and younger, and...female. And, well...Jewish," (and gay! I can't believe they forgot gay!) and "I don't believe in tiny, Jewish Santa anymore."
The Willow/Tara roof scene is probably the first scene that really treats their relationship with some depth and subtlety. Imagine that. But where are they supposed to be? On top of their dorm?
ASH's delivery kills me. I also enjoy Giles's persistent short temper with Xander.
I'm not sure how I feel about the whole demon from space concept, and I have trouble finding the cockroach demon creepy. But how convenient that the same crazy person Willow saw at the hospital was wandering alone at night in the woods where the Queller demon landed. Speaking of contrivance, since when does Riley know how to do forensic work and how did he know that stuff on the body was a protein or alkaloid or whatever?
I think Kristine Sutherland gives one of her best performances in this episode with the definite stand out scene being the one with Joyce and Buffy discussing Dawn.
For some reason, I find Buffy beating up a crappy fake snake in "Shadow" more heartbreaking than her actually crying in this episode. And the shot of Joyce and Dawn clinging to Buffy after she kills the demon feels over the top. We get -- everyone depends on Buffy now.
Kate: Thank you so much for your compliment and comments. Willow is my favourite main character so it pains me she has a poor first half to this season. However, you are right there is goodness to come. And season six.
Giles as Anya's straight man may not be the best thing for him but it is at least amusing.
Nullasalus: Actually, I had meant to mention the tiny Jewish Santa line which made me giggle. And maybe there are waiting to get in a clumsy gay references for Triangle.
The snot monster line would be funnier if I wasn't getting a little bored with that sort of line from Giles.
The sort of contrivance you mention is the sort of thing that makes me cross in Angel but I accept from BtVS. Double standards ahoy.
So on that note, they believe Riley when he says he's not one for the books? He was posing as a teaching assistant in psychology last season.
Ok, I'm going to start posting under my real name now since it's become a habit and you know who I am. But I'll remain decapitalized so that I'm accessible and nonthreatening.
As I said, I always love Giles being cross with Xander, and I have an enormous soft spot for ASH because, well, I think he's very sexy. And a fine actor blah blah blah. I realized that season seven had sunk to new lows when Giles was annoying me. But I do wish that he had had more interesting storylines in seasons four and five. At least in season four he was struggling with his identity a bit; in season five he doesn't really have much going on.
No kidding. And he makes a comment in "The Replacement" about wanting to study the two Xanders, so he seems to have a genuine interest in psychology. He must have done research at some point.
And just a minor nitpick: I wish that Willow had made her "I don't want to be the one to find the dead bodies anymore" comment to Tara rather than Giles. I should be able to forgive the writers for wasting that opportunity for the witchlets to interact because of the nice rooftop scene, but I can't.
Good because regularly having “no salvation” in Latin on my blog was both inaccessible and threatening
I’m getting ahead of myself but it is really noticeable in Triangle that there is practically a “no touching!” rule when Tara and Willow are on screen with other characters. So maybe having Willow talk intimately to Tara in front of others may just have been too much for the audience.