Normal Again (Diego Gutierrez)
Quote of the season: “You’re addicted to the misery.”
I looked back at a review from season 5 and, while the episode wasn’t very good (it was “Spiral”), I wrote about it with affection. I don’t feel affectionate towards the mid to latter half of season 6, a fact which I am inclined to blame on my wavering attachment to Joss Whedon.
Whedon seems to bring out the critic in a lot of us. I think the weight of his self-proclaimed feminism and his desire to explore contentious issues is becoming too much for his work to bear. After all, I can happily watch series like Bionic Woman and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and not really care how contrived or inconsistent or stupid they are as long as they reasonably entertain me but I can’t do that with Whedon’s work because there is supposed to be more to it than mere entertainment.
For me, the problem with season 6 has been its sexual content and unpleasant plotting revolving around Warren. Sexual exploitation and manipulation is part of human life but I don’t want to watch it on TV. Which leads me to Dollhouse – I know the task that Whedon has set himself to do but do I want to watch how he is going about it?
I was initially reluctant to watch Mad Men because I thought that I didn’t want to watch a show about misogyny and racism but the show is of such high quality that although it portrays these things it does so in an interesting, mostly subtle and definitely thought provoking way. It’s not entirely light-handed but it is not ever a gratuitous show. I think my point is that Mad Men is well made but Dollhouse isn’t – yet.
Season 6 isn’t very good overall.
I have now tipped into that camp. Except for “Once More, With Feeling” and “Tabula Rasa”, the episodes have been a mixed bag that were too often unbearable particularly anything involving Spuffy and the Willow’s a junkie storyline and not just because they are difficult topics but also because the writing and the plotting were weak. It has been a struggle to get through this boxed set, and the competition for my time, namely Mad Men and Battlestar Galactica (and that has its weaknesses and inconsistencies but is often exciting and moving), has highlighted the weaknesses of latter day Buffy.
I also blame Anthony Head. Giles’ absence has been keenly felt and not just for the Scooby gang. His mature, adult presence stuck the show together (and ensured less screen time for other characters).
On to a few points about the episode itself:
I think it was brave to suggest that Buffy may still be in a mental institution with the final scene in the hospital. It can and is argued that this doesn’t necessarily mean she has always been there but it is borderline UNambiguous.
A line like “Eventually my parents just forgot” is really not enough to erase Joyce’s reaction to Buffy’s coming out all the way back in season 2. However, if it’s all in her head then anything can happen on 7 seasons of Buffy.
Anyway, I don’t really care one way or the other but I hadn’t realised until I read Sam’s comments on Mikejer’s site that there were people who hated season 6 for a third reason. Obviously, I know there are the kittens but there are also the folks who cannot bear the attempted rape in “Seeing Red” and the souled Spike storyline and now I know there are those to hate that Buffy may no longer be a superhero but a young woman making up fantasies in her head – they feel that Whedon let them down.
Tara has a bit of a cheek marching into the Summers’ home but she saves the day: a fact that I love a great deal. She earlier wears a spectacularly horrible top but that isn’t the last bad top she’ll wear.
There is some tremendous acting from Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kristine Sutherland in the scene where the latter tells Buffy that she will always be there for her. It brought tears to my eyes.
I know you’re afraid. I know the world feels like a hard place sometimes, but you’ve got people who love you. Your dad and I, we have all the faith in the world in you. We’ll always be with you.
I almost felt sorry for Xander as he explains how pathetic he is (“But then I left and ever since I’ve had this painful hole inside. And I’m the idiot that dug it out.”) – Nicholas Brendon is great here. I also like the scene when Spike tells Xander all about his relationship with Buffy and in typical Scooby fashion Xander doesn’t pay close enough attention.
Only two epsiodes to go.
Is that the “ugly” shirt you’re talking about on Tara? I don’t think it’s bad. She has worn much much much worse. But you also called a black boatneck Buffy had on in “Older and Far Away” ugly and I didn’t think that shirt was that bad either. I’m not saying that I would wear these pieces of clothing, but they don’t distract me and they actually look like clothing real people might wear.
I can really see where those people are coming from in regards to the ending shot of Buffy in the hospital. I’m not a huge fan of this episode save the fact that Tara gets to save the day a little. Walking into Buffy’s house like that does seem very un-Tara though. But I guess she did live there for several months. Oh, and I do like seeing Kristine Sutherland again. She and SMG are very good together. Season six had not only had no Giles it had no Joyce, making it completely adult-free and feeling rather anchor-less.
Some slightly edited comments that I wrote to a friend immediately after seeing “Normal Again” a couple years ago. This friend had told me that it was his favorite non-singing episode of season 6, BTW.
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Just watched Normal Again and I thought it was one of the worst episodes yet. It just rubbed me wrong in about every way possible.
The only part I liked was when the doctor commented on how season 6 is really lame compared to the first five as proof that she was giving up on the fake world. And that’s just because it’s kind of true.
We’ve already seen “giving up, and thus really ploddingly acted” Buffy at the end of season 5 in her catatonia then. This is the same
thing, proving she hasn’t learned anything.
I really disliked the scene at the end. It implies that it is a “real” world because it is certainly existing outside her mind. which either means it was just a shoddily done trick to make us wonder if it is real. Or the whole Sunnydale universe is actually made up, which is a) just too ridiculous and way too much of a jumping the shark moment and b) violates our willingness to believe and love the Buffyverse. That it’s all just a dream is so offensive given how much we’ve invested in it.
The only thing I could accept is some serious work on “alternate universes” where they’re both real, and whatever choice buffy made, she would simply exist in that world. but even that just seems like far too much, unless it were going to be seriously developed. As an invented technique for one episode, it’s just annoying.
I just really dislike episodes where people are behaving irrationally and you just have to sit and watch, knowing long in advance that they’re going to be wrong and horrible until the very end.
Hell’s Bells was, in a similar way, frustrating. Though at least I can understand why Xander does what he does. But that only helps somewhat. It’s just not satisfying TV for me when people are behaving terribly or stupidly and all you can do is sit and watch it. I appreciate depressing stuff, certainly, but it needs to be for a reason. I really feel like sometimes they tend toward “if it’s depressing, that proves it’s meaningful” which is a total cop-out.
I must admit that I adored the conceit of this episode, I liked, for the most part, how it was deliverd and the ambiguity of it…UNTIL…that ending which, in my mind left the viewer no alternative but to accept that the whole thing has been in Buffy’s head – and that is just wrong. I have been forced to swallow lots over five and a half seasons, but to declare quite so brutally that all you have watched hasn’t been real felt like a kick in the teeth.
I don’t think I have the emotional attachment to the series that you have and because of that I think I have been able to tolerate it more as <blasphemy>just TV</blasphemy> but this asked me to accept just too much…maybe, later than for most, this was my shark-jumping moment – because for the first time I really felt cheated!
Good point about the lack of an adult to keep these kids under control!
“Only two episodes to go.”
You won’t review the rest of season 6? I’ll miss the Tara quotes.
Ironically, one BtVS quote that gave me the most satisfaction is “Shut up, shut up! You do not get to say her name…” Heh.
I felt that ‘Normal Again’ was a very good episode. I guess it helped that I never really gave the ending scene much thought.
Hi Lizzy, thanks for noticing that line but I do have every intention of finishing seasons 6 and 7 to the best of my ability and energy resources!
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There is a virtual prize for the person who correctly predicts the title of my “Entropy” post.
Oohhh! Lemme play!
Here’s my best guess:
Can We Just Skip It?
I would pick “What kind of lesbians are you? If you love men so much, go love men!” but I’m not sure that you would.
Also, I know what the “two episodes to go” thing means and it makes me sniffle.
Oh…and now I do as well…
Personally, I loved this episode. And I had no problem with the final scene, because while I know it was designed to mess with our heads, it was pretty clearly Buffy briefly lapsing back into the asylum delusion before she drank the magic potion. (Proof the asylum world wasn’t real: we never, even ONCE, saw anything out of Buffy’s line of sight or heard anything out of her earshot. Not even in the final shot, where the camera stayed on Buffy’s face the whole time even as it moved into the hallway. In Sunnydale, though, lots of stuff happens when Buffy isn’t there to see it.)
That said, I agree with you about the season as a whole being pretty bad for a whole lot of reasons. Aside from the obvious stuff (Spuffy, Willow as addict, the Dark Willow trilogy, depresso-Buffy), there was the good:bad episode ratio. Using S4 as a comparison: I didn’t care much about the Adam/Initiative storyline, but S4 had about a dozen really good episodes and only a couple of bad ones. It was easy to forgive the Initiative stuff when I had Hush, Restless, Something Blue, A New Man, and so forth to keep me happy.
Season six, by comparison, had three episodes that really stood out for me (OMWF, Tabula Rasa, Normal Again), a few decent ones that I can take or leave, and a bunch that I disliked (Smashed, Hells Bells, Entropy, Seeing Red) or outright hated (Wrecked, Gone, Doublemeat Palace, As You Were, Villains, Two to Go, Grave). I could have forgiven a lot of the bad stuff in S6 if it had ten individually brilliant episodes and only two or three bad ones, instead of the other way round.
Giles’ absence has been keenly felt and not just for the Scooby gang. His mature, adult presence stuck the show together (and ensured less screen time for other characters).
So very true.
@darkpoole: Regarding never seeing anything out of Buffy’s line of sight, there is actually a shot in the teaser of a hallway that Buffy would not have been able to see.
My only other entry for possible “Entropy” post titles: “True, but technically you’re one-and-a-half.” OK, and maybe “Can you just be kissing me now?” if you’re sappy.
It’s gotta be “Can you just be kissing me now?”
That’s basically the final moment when it might still have been possible for things to be okay.