My hat has a cow
Saturday 31 January 2009 – 18:37As You Were (Douglas Petrie)
A wise person (somewhere on the Internet) said that there are many ways to watch an episode of BtVS because each person has their own biases towards story elements and characters and different levels of tolerance towards plot deficiencies and contrivances.
Sometimes I care a lot about deficiencies and contrivances and sometimes I don’t care at all. I don’t mind at all that Spike is the Doctor (although making him sound less like Doc might have been a good idea) because after all he is “Deadly. Amoral. Opportunistic.”
And it is cheesy but no more so than a popular (not round this way) episode like “The Zeppo” (ha, my review of that totally demonstrates my lack of tolerance). I like Xander and Willow’s over the top admiration for Nick and Nora Fury – it reminded me of “Ted”.
Whenever I said the name of this episode I would shudder and mutter “Riley and his wife, yuck” which is no surprise since the time I saw Riley my blood was boiling with Marti Noxon induced indignation.
My hat has a cow
I am happy to announce that upon watching this for only the second time I have to admit to appreciating it a lot more and actually finding it incredibly sad. Riley and Sam separately and together make Buffy hyper aware of how sucky her life is. She makes the welcome and healthy decision to end her relationship with Spike and the rest of her season is set up. In addition, any episode that makes Willow a little more lovable than she has been recently can’t be so bad. Her “chipper” moment in the Bronze with Dawn is sweet.
Nice bathroom. Like the glass.
Anya and Xander stuck in the traffic listening to hell radio and stuck in their nice bathroom were funny and sad scenes particularly in light of what is to come.
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Georgia, USA on 
4 Responses to “My hat has a cow”
Holy shoot! Two posts in two days? Your weekend must be REALLY quiet.
I haven’t watched this episode recently enough to make more in depth comments, but I like Riley a surprising amount in this episode. For once, he doesn’t need Buffy to act a certain way to gratify his ego, and instead he actually boosts Buffy’s. Oh, but Sam is a little too friendly and interested in her husband’s ex, in my opinion.
I also remember thinking that Buffy looks lovely when she breaks up with Spike. Isn’t she wearing lavender? And she calls Spike “William.” I like that. I like that she isn’t mean to him.
By stephanie b on Sunday 1 February 2009 – 22:26
This is a very annoying episode. Riley’s in it, which is bad enough. Riley got married awfully quickly, didn’t he? He must have got over Buffy, like, immediately. On top of that, Sam is annoyingly perfect, and I hate her on principle.
What’s with leaving out that very important detail about NOT killing the monster they are tracking? Like a military man wouldn’t have briefed the situation more thoroughly.
And no way would Riley have been that understanding of Buffy sleeping with Spike. Unbelievable!
Okay, it got Buffy where she needed to go, but in a sloppy, irritating way.
By Jackie on Monday 2 February 2009 – 2:45
Jackie, all perfectly valid points which I reckon I would have agreed with before watching the episode again. I must have been in a good mood.
Stephanie, Buffy not hitting Spike and not being snarky to him is always a plus. She was wearing lavender but I didn’t like the neckline.
By moley75 on Monday 2 February 2009 – 9:08
Jackie,
1) It seemed that some closure was needed with the Riley storyline and it was nice to see him in a scene with Dawn for the first time.
2) Buffy and Riley had a lot to say to each other – all of it important and hardly any of it got out. As if they were struggling to hold words in that could hurt or send the wrong signals.
3) Maybe Riley was understanding of Spike and Buffy because he had already seen the scene in front of him – in his head. Spike kind of created the image when he confronted Riley about the Vamp den. And it was Buffy and Spike who walked in on Riley and his ‘client’ in the den. So its fitting and equally humiliating for him to walk in on them. It just seems to have a certain balance to me.
By Georgia, USA on Friday 27 March 2009 – 16:46