Assume crash positions
Saturday, January 19th, 2008After Life (Jane Espenson)
The last five minutes of this are superb - worthy of just quoting Buffy’s monologue (though that doesn’t do justice to what is essentially a dialogue between SMG and James Marsters despite Spike’s silence).
I was happy. Wherever I…was…I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time…didn’t mean anything…nothing had form…but I was still me, you know? And I was warm…and I was loved…and I was finished. Complete. I don’t understand about theology or dimensions, or, any of it, really…but I think I was in heaven. And now I’m not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out…by my friends. Everything here is…hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch…this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that…knowing what I’ve lost…They can never know. Never.
(Not until that pesky musical episode anyway.)
I really really dislike the others when they pile into the living room and effectively terrorize Buffy leaving it to Dawn (after Spike understandably scarpers) to tell them to back off.
And, I can hardly write this for laughing at the incongruity that my son who would wear pyjamas 24/7 if we, ahem, let him, exclaimed, “What is Willow wearing?” when Alyson Hannigan appeared clad in what can only be called a plush synthetic bathroom set.
Unbelievably in all seven seasons of Buffy when some pretty terrible clothes were worn this takes the biscuit. It is seriously vile.
It also detracts from Buffy’s very convincing thank you even though she struggles to disguise her revulsion at the realisation that it is ALL Willow’s fault.
Why does Tara wear a bra to bed? (What? Everybody does?) Whatever. I find that distracts me from Tara and Willow’s conversation as well as the arm stroking and the fact they are in bed together - but maybe that’s just me. Anyway - moving on - how dozy are they that it does not occur to them that Buffy’s lack of gratitude may be related to the place they just took her from? This line tickles me - “Right. No need to be in a big furry hurry” because clearly Willow ignores her own advice later on.
Serious stuff and big trouble ahead:
Tara: “Well, what was it talking about? Did you understand it?”
Willow: “Well, I understood the words, but…no.”
(It said “The blood dried on your hands, didn’t it?”)
The scene between Tara and Xander (when he presumably talks to the only person he can about Willow’s behaviour) is unusual because I can’t recall another scene with just the two of them and Tara’s defence of her girlfriend is just that - defensive.
I feel genuinely sad when Willow and Tara are doing the spell together and Willow breaks their connection and finishes it herself. She has come a long way from floating the rose.
I read some other analyses of BtVS and I feel shallow that I get amused by “furry hurry” lines because it conjures up that top and because I wonder why Tara is wearing a bra but then I revel in the fact that BtVS can handle any interpretation thrown at it. It works on so many levels and I think I know where mine is.
