Alas not the musical or the children’s book but a Marti Noxon blood boiling special. I apologise in advance for getting so cross.
Riley is the fourth major male character who gets to leave Sunnydale without having to die.
It starts off okay with Joyce and the all-clear and the nice scene with Xander, Anya and Dawn: “Well, we could play that game again, Life. That was fun.” “For you. You always win.” “Well, we can make a wager this time. You can give me real money. That would be different.” “And after we teach her to gamble, maybe we can all get drunk!” “I don’t think the bar would serve her, but we could bring something in. Strawberry schnapps taste just like real ice cream.”
Then there is the sex bit. Then there is scene in the Magic Box setting up the events in Triangle. All okay: amusing and/or reasonable.
Good line from Giles: “No longer a victim of crass holiday commercialization, I’m…a purveyor of it.”
Then one of many hard to believe scenes: why doesn’t Riley kill Spike? I know the real answer is that James Marsters is very popular and he’s funny and sexy and not Marc Blucas. But in terms of drama: why does he stake him and not kill him?
I do believe that I never praise James Marsters as Spike but he is great. In this episode he has the funny “are you naked under there?” and the smirking at Riley, the subsiding terror of nearly dying, the frankness of “sometimes I envy you so much it chokes me” and he is charismatic throughout. Despite all Spike’s dreadful behaviour, he’s a charmer.
Spike is right: of course, Riley is not Buffy’s long haul guy but that isn’t her fault: right guy, wrong time. It happens.
The scene between Buffy and Riley is well acted and what Riley says is so wrong that Buffy can only respond negatively. Riley says the vampires needed him in a way that Buffy didn’t: say what? They are desperate not needy. Even vampires are humiliating themselves when they sell themselves like this. It is not a healthy transaction.
I do believe that he believes what he’s saying except when he asks her to hit him which is just odd to me (perhaps I’m sheltered). Does he think if she hits him that means she cares? Does he want her to hurt him? I dunno.
She rightly refuses to accept his ultimatum and that would be okay if the episode ended there. But then we have to put up with the intervention of Xander which is the scene that makes me want to thump the screen, just like the Xander scene in Dead Man’s Party because if there is anything I like less than patronising Xander it’s self-fucking-righteous Xander.
“You shut down, Buffy. And you’ve been treating Riley like the rebound guy. When he’s the one that comes along once in a lifetime. He’s never held back with you. He’s risked everything. And you’re about to let him fly because you don’t like ultimatums?” He’s the one who comes along once in a lifetime? Oh please.
And then there is the scene with Buffy running, running, running - running after the man who took up with whore vampires because she wasn’t giving him what he needed. And what he needed was validation of himself as a man with a woman to look after. Fuck. Off.
The episode is partly redeemed by Xander’s speech to Anya which at least shows he was listening to himself.
Is it me or are Marti Noxon’s scripts incoherent? Characters do and say things that have an effect on others when they shouldn’t. And things happen that make no sense. New Moon Rising is a good example of this.
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.
My sister and her husband celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary today while my mum and dad celebrated their 50th in January. My sister and her girlfriend have been together 16 years while for Andy and me it’s 17 years. That’s over 100 years of bliss or something like that.
Dreg (Kevin Weisman, Marshall Flinkman in Alias – Alias two seasons of fun, fun, fun and then wtf?) fawning over Glory is amusing. “No! No, no, your terrifically smooth one, it is the epitome of ankles. To touch such an ankle would be - but I’m not touching. I’m backing away.”…”Dreg, is it?” “Yes. Dreg. Your creamy coolness has honored me by speaking my name. Your voice is like a thousand sweet songbirds that..” “Yeah, I never tire of hearing that…”
Spike is stalking Buffy and in any other show that would be disturbing but in the world of BtVS it seems relatively normal and funny. “Ah, that’s the stuff! Slayer musk, it’s bitter and aggravating!”
I’m not keen on Xander so patronising Xander is squirmy. “An, we talked about the employee-employer vocabulary no-nos. That was number five.”
Riley, Riley. I have tried to be supportive but he’s not helping himself at all. If I have learned one thing from BtVS it’s that you should talk to the person you have a problem with and not listen to their stalker or their little sister instead (and then extrapolate the worst).
“My god, are you guys okay though? I mean, did - no one got hurt, right?” “Oh no, thankfully, no, uh, no violence to speak of.” “Okay, so, that’s good…how did she get away with this bad mojo stuff?” “Giles sold it to her.” Anya’s whisper is very funny. I have just discovered that Emma Caulfield has a MySpace space and it’s interesting…
Riley is being a bit yucky now though it’s a nice touch having Sandy return from Doppelgängland before being cast aside in disgust.
The cgi monster is scarier than the animatronic one but that’s scary in the loosest sense.
The final shots: what are we supposed to be thinking here? Sorry for Riley? I don’t get why the last shot is of him looking forlorn as if he’s been deserted for no good reason.
Maureen’s mention of Patrick Stewart in Extras (very, very funny) reminded me to write about an interesting film we watched yesterday, Steamboy. It’s a Japanese animated film and we watched the shorter English language version with the voices of Patrick Stewart, Alfred Molina and Anna Paquin. Alfred Molina sounded like Bernard Hill (Andy: Adam won’t know who Bernard “gissa job” Hill is, I said “Theoden”) and Anna Paquin almost ruined the film as the eponymous Steamboy. We didn’t realise until after that it was her fault because we assumed he was a boy but anyway, her/his accent was all over the place. And why? Anna Paquin isn’t going to sell a film.
Andy described it as anti-war porn. It left us breathless after twenty minutes but kept topping itself as weapon and invention was produced bigger and better than the last. It looked incredible with beautiful backgrounds and some stunning sequences. Fantastic stuff it you like cartoons, steampunk and gorgeous drawings.
This is what the dreadful The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been.
