"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:37052a28-8376-4cb4-9012-d3629f4e6bd9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>A reminder: No use looking at these threads like that. It's the
> gullet for you, mister.
I think I'm gonna boot.
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Six, Episode 8: "Smashed"
> "Smashed" goes a little nuts at the end, perhaps attempting to reflect
> the way its three parallel leads do. The whole episode is a little
> nuts, an unrelenting stream of Trio hijinx and Amy hijinx (why they
> almost never give her this kind of screen time again is beyond me) and
> fun little continuity porn mixed with what should be interesting dark
> shifts in the direction of the story. Somehow, though, it's always
> ended up seeming paradoxically like the Buffyverse's structure is
> spinning out of control at the same time as huge amounts of time are
> spent on not much happening. The latter is self-explanatory, while
> for examples of the former... okay, how about Willow's buy-one-get-one-
> free spell which announces louder than ever that she has access to
> whatever spell suits the writers' fancy.
In practical terms, they already did have unlimited access. The
difference
is demonstrating that Willow has unlimited access. One mitigating factor
to
the scope is that this is a spell Willow knows exists. (Amy has cast it
before.) So Willow's spell can be seen as really revealing something that
already exists as opposed to making something up. A subtle distinction I
know, but it matters to me because it makes it just a little easier for
the
spell to serve the other functions of demonstrating both Willow's power
and
her short cut mentality.
More broadly I think this is one of the more pivotal episodes of the
season,
and is meant to let loose big. Willow fully succumbs to the lure of magic
as pure self indulgence and leaves herself wide open to the unexpected.
(Her attitude reminds me a little of drunken Willow in Something Blue.)
Meanwhile Buffy, in a parallel fall from grace, finds the notion of coming
back wrong the perfect excuse for escaping herself and diving into Spike
sex.
With Willow, they're piling on all her life influences, culminating in a
self indulgent spasm at the Bronze showing how out of control and
dangerous
she is both. With Spuffy, they're also drawing on the Angel/Buffy
parallel
where sex changes everything and all hell breaks loose.
> The sheer level of random
> crap thrown into the bar binge at the end plays into that too, and the
> way Buffy and Spike get to actually scare up a whole collapsing house
> to add cinematic punch to their big sex scene still seems silly.
There are definitely clunky elements to the episode. I've never cared for
the play of the bar binge. Somehow I expect Willow to have more
imagination
than make people wear stupid clothes and fly about. Plus, the music kind
of
sucks. I think the collapsing house is great though. There's a myriad of
symbolic usages, but mainly I just like the idea that sex between the two
is earth shaking. (Which I think it has to be to support the ongoing
parallel between Spike and Angel.)
> There're quite a few strong moments in "Smashed," particularly for
> those who like Amy's rat-like hyperactivity
She really is great this episode. The peak of her sporadic BtVS career.
> and very much so for those
> who like seeing Spike in the best and worst of times.
Oh, God yes. It's been way too long since we've really seen the monster
in
Spike. The swagger. The ruthlessness. And that trade-mark grin.
Letting
that loose in Spike may be the best thing about the episode.
> But it doesn't
> hold together as a very solid hour for me. I feel like I may
> appreciate the high-ish level of quotables more this time around, at
> least, so slightly but not significantly improved the second time.
There's a lot of big stuff this episode. Amy's back. Willow goes wild.
Spike's chip doesn't work on Buffy. Buffy came back wrong. Little fun
stuff too. Andrew going all Mission Impossible. Buffy's mortification
that
Spike would call her on the phone like he's her boyfriend or something.
Tara reconnecting with Dawn. And so on.
It really matters too. I love the Buffy/Willow parallel that's pushed
very
heavily here through Gone - especially this episode where we see each
yearning to escape themselves and acting recklessly on that desire.
The essential content of the episode deserves an Excellent in my book, but
unfortunately the play of it has problems. A lot of stuff is played out
too
long. (I love the Boba Fett idea, but there's way too much of it.) Other
stuff is overdone. And then there's all the time in the Magic Box with
not
much of anything happening. It's weird that an episode that's really
overflowing with content so often feels labored. So I can't give it such
a
high ranking. But the content still gets me. It remains a solid Good in
the end.
> Meanwhile, in a new development, the episode begins with Buffy
> swearing she'd never have anything to do romantically with Spike, and
> ends with them together.
I talked a lot about that last time and surely could write a few thousand
more words on what that hot and cold relationship means to Spuffy (Spike
sends more mixed messages than he's aware of too) and how silly I think
your
criticism is. I'll just quickly reiterate that this version of their
waffling only lasts from the kiss in OMWF until the sex this episode -
slightly more than 2 episodes - and that it's central to their
relationship.
(The tension between desire and regret within Buffy continues through most
of the season.) Also, I don't think it's right to conflate the kisses
with
this sex as equivalent endings with them together. This is BtVS. Sex is
a
big deal - house destroying in this case. Especially between Buffy and a
vampire. It's suppose to mark when everything changes.
> Rating: Decent
Back in the S6D2 discussion you were asking me about the season's threat
to
Buffy's identity as oppose to her desire to die. I'm still not sure what
you were getting at, but this seems a good moment to expand on that
subject
some.
I don't think that Buffy's identity is actually very threatened. Oh, I
think she thinks so. Plus she's got a problem hanging onto any identity
at
all during her disinterest in living. But I think the essential parts of
her will always come forth eventually - and much of this season shows that
happening as she painfully re-acquires meaning to her life.
That doesn't mean, however, that she's on a path to be like she was
before.
Part of what's going on is letting go of illusions about herself -
especially the more juvenile ones. (Growing up.) This is a critical
moment
in that story, where she is compelled to let go of years of attitude
towards
Spike, best expressed in FFL when she says she can never do it with Spike
because he's beneath her. Buffy uses an equivalent expression this
episode
when she tells Spike, "You're not a man. You're a thing." But this time
it's said with a desperate anger rather than the cold superiority of FFL.
Soon enough she knows she doesn't have an answer to Spike insisting that
they're equals now, and in a wonderful combination of despair and desire
she
succumbs to his charms. (Another reason why the sex is a culmination -
it's
the proof that he's good enough for her - no longer beneath her. Or so he
thinks.)
It's here that she essentially gives up on her old identity - so she
thinks - and tries to escape from herself. (This will actually grow for a
while, but this is still the big moment of change.) On the one hand she
despairs at losing herself. On the other she revels in the freedom from
that burden. Coming back wrong is a blessing in a curse.
But something else is happening simultaneously. This goes back to Spike's
words to Buffy in OMWF.
Life's not a song
Life isn't bliss
Life is just this
It's living
You'll get along
The pain that you feel
You only can heal
By living
You have to go one living
So one of us is living.
This is when Buffy starts living again. Not living well, mind you. But
living still. And so, this is also when things start mattering again.
Which will hurt like hell, but still represents the start of her path back
to health. I think this is also what leads her to realize in Gone that
she
still wants to live. (Though her feelings about Willow's pain probably
help
get her there too.)
> Season Six, Episode 9: "Wrecked"
> Re-reading the old thread for this one... wow, there're lots of words in
> that. "Wrecked" apparently splits the difference between two
> unenviable positions. On the one hand, the addiction analogy leads
> the play of this particular episode towards very broad and un-subtle,
> threatening to drown out everything else. I really like the visuals
> during the magic trips, but drug-metaphor imagery is so unrelenting
> and so deafening that it's hard for our witch's identity crisis to
> breathe. Then on the other hand, it's trying something subtle that
> loses a lot of people, with Willow basically ignoring what her love of
> controlling dangerous magic is doing to her friends and even her love
> life... until it itself becomes a threat to that very sense of control
> she's so keen on. Willow becoming addicted to that dark arts feeling
> is really the only thing that could finally knock some sense into her
> at this point, but it also turns into a facile explanation to avoid
> confronting her other issues. Her friends' compassion (a late
> development not in the original story outline) is certainly admirable
> in its way, but in the end, they all learn the wrong lesson from
> "Wrecked," and Willow's desire to fix the world to her liking will
> soon emerge again.
In the Buffy parallel story, Buffy actually does worse because she can't
let
go of the Spike addiction. Of course she hasn't crashed yet like Willow.
> To me that's a clever and interesting way to build
> on the themes introduced in the early seasons and articulated by
> "Restless." Of course there are also those who understand it just
> fine, but don't think it's a narratively satisfying left turn for the
> story to be taking, and/or that it's too unfocused, and/or that it
> distracts from what could have been a stronger story based directly
> around the themes of abuse of power and trust stemming from the Tara
> breakup. To which I respond, well, that's like, your opinion, man. I
> also award extra credit for the best use of Dawn in any non-S7
> episode
Well... best in S6 anyway. I really like much of MT's S5 work.
> ... and the last good one for a long time, unfortunately. All in
> all, it's a fine episode to be one of the relatively few but self-
> assured "defenders" of. (My brother loved Willow's journey this
> season, so that brings our numbers up like 10%.)
I love her journey too - including this episode.
> Rating: Good
I just read my old comments to your first review, and I don't think I can
expand on them at all. I'll only repeat that I have no problem with the
drug analogy in this episode. I know the audience feels blind sided. So
does Willow. That's part of the point. She has reduced magic to self
gratification and has become so reckless in that pursuit that she's left
herself open to the likes of a Rack, who she knows nothing about. We see
all of Willow's weaknesses paraded before us these last two episodes. One
of them is naivety. When you run head down through the woods, you'll run
into something eventually. It could be a bush. Or maybe a tree. Or
maybe
off the cliff you didn't imagine could be there. Rack is supposed to be
an
unexpected penalty. The expected penalty will come later.
I really dug the tripping this time - and Dawn - and the conversation at
the
end between Willow and Buffy. So my rating nudged up to a low Excellent.
> Season Six, Episode 10: "Gone"
> I've heard the theory that "Gone" gets a bad rap in part because of
> its timing, as the first episode back from hiatus and the only ep for
> another few weeks. Just thought I'd raise the suggestion. Another
> part comes from things like syncing Invisible Buffy's dialogue to make
> it sound like it's in the same universe as the rest of the episode;
> even David has often been critical of the staging and direction of
> this one, the first thing he ever shot other than that OMWF featurette
> (most of the other first-timers got to cut their teeth on second-unit
> scenes in other peoples' episodes). It's seriously never bothered me;
<shrug> I don't dislike that exactly, but I'm always conscious of the
acoustical difference in voices and little timing discrepancies. It's
enough to nag a little like an itch. But there's still funny stuff in the
episode.
> the conversations flow as naturally to me as ever during the euphoric
> scene in which Buffy first checks in with her friends at the Magic
> Box. It makes me grin, much like Buffy herself is (probably) doing at
> getting a chance to let her new short hair down. Even more so than
> "Tabula Rasa," which required more magic to make it happen, I find
> Buffy's enthusiasm for the potential for fun positively infectious.
> All in all, I've never quite understood the hatred for "Gone," which
> leads me to rather like it. True, it's weighed down significantly by
> some genuinely bad individual scenes towards the beginning
> (especially!) and end. But the chance to decide that one would prefer
> not to die is a worthwhile step on the recovery road. I still won't
> go above Decent, but a fairly fun Decent. It's interesting to note
> that in some ways, caring about life again is what leads her to hit a
> different kind of rock bottom in the episodes coming up, but a case
> can be made that the end of DT is a sign of hope the same way that the
> last scene of this is.
>
> Meanwhile, in a new development, the last two episodes both begin with
> Buffy swearing she'd never have anything to do romantically with
> Spike, and "Gone" proceeds to get them together... and then
> experiments with moving things along afterward. Progress and such! I
> want to be engaged in the B/S relationship as it exists during the
> middle portion of this season, not in the sense of squealing about how
> hot it is but in the sense of enjoying poring over the layers of
> twisted feelings and history. Unfortunately, I only really notice the
> kind of depth I want in OMWF and "Dead Things," and to a much lesser
> extent "Gone;" the rest is all endless repetition and underwhelming
> monologue-offs.
They don't get domestic until S7. This year we've got the constant
tension
between the monster and the human in both of them as they struggle to
learn
who they really are - which is neither what they were nor what they
thought/feared/hoped they'd become.
> Rating: Decent
I like the ending of this episode a whole lot as Willow and Buffy find an
unexpected common ground. There's really a nice kind of re-bonding going
on
with them. Alas, Buffy's still got a secret and has fallen off her wagon.
So it doesn't go much further. Still, wanting to live is something.
> Additional comments on S6D3: Okay, geek-out time. Andrew claims to
> have seen every episode of _Doctor Who_, but not _Red Dwarf_ because
> of its lack of a DVD release (although it's not clear if that's the
> real explanation; maybe he's just trying to avoid saying anything
> critical about something "English," because you know Spike would just
> be so, so appalled). That doesn't quite hold up - first of all, much
> of DW isn't available on DVD either, even today. More importantly,
> there are dozens of episodes of _Doctor Who_ for which every known
> copy was destroyed, years before Andrew was born. I doubt the writers
> knew this, which is understandable - many Americans' knowledge of Who
> in 2001 was basically that it was a British fantasy show that ran for
> a long time with a bunch of different actors. The only reason I
> mention all this is that I think a more accurate version of the joke
> would've actually been slightly funnier: have Andrew say that he's
> seen every *surviving* episode. Ah, well.
I confess I've never seen a single episode of either - and really couldn't
follow much of your commentary. Yet I still feel kind of geeky. Maybe
I'm
really one of those country geeks a gawking. <shudder>
> It would've made my world-view a little tidier if Drew Greenberg had
> come across as smug or a jerk in his commentary track. Unfortunately
> for tidiness, he seems deeply appreciative of having landed this dream
> job, getting to write scripts for a show of which he was such a huge
> fan. He generally comes across as a good guy. Too bad about the
> whole "mostly sucking as a writer" thing.
Hmmm. That must be one of those jokes I don't get. (Geeks a gawking.)
> Thoughts?
Sorry for being so late with this. Things in RL just refuse to cooperate.
I'm still dedicated to catching up eventually.
OBS
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