Arbitrar Of Quality <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Six, Episode 15: "Hell's Bells"
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Solomon
Watching this one again reminded me of two oddities that I'd forgotten:
-In the Uncle-Rory-in-his-shorts scene, there's a Dead Kennedys logo on
Xander and Anya's kitchen memo board.
-When Xander disappears, no one ever speculates that he might have been
attacked by something Hellmouthy. Shouldn't that have been the very first
thing Willow and Buffy considered? (And it *is* what really happened,
kinda.)
> whole exercise. As has been discussed at great length, I pretty much
> hate it, because I continue to not buy Xander's decision at the end
> (or the way it leads us to the nearly un-twist-able cliché of the
> bride left sobbing at the alter). A comment that I found helpful from
> the original thread (from Michael) is that Xander's choice is
> [supposed to be] an epiphany, not a moment of panic. It doesn't play
> that way at all, though.
Assuming we're talking about his decision at the end to call off the
wedding, and not his disappearing act earlier, I agree with the epiphany
interpretation. I think it just plays out a little awkwardly because they
chose to keep it as a surprise ending. Xander wanders around looking
lost, then comes back to announce that he had an epiphany while he was
out; we aren't in his headspace when the actual epiphany occurs. Come to
think of it, this is not unlike the way Xander's pre-marital jitters have
been played for half a season now: we only see the surface stuff, which
can be easily dismissed as standard nerves, so what's *really* going on in
his head comes as a surprise when revealed. It makes sense but the
execution is not totally satisfying, even for someone like me who thinks
Xander made the right decision.
As for the perennial issue of Xander leaving Anya to deal with the wedding
guests, my perennial answer is that it wasn't his decision. After their
conversation finally petered out, it was Anya who decided to walk back
into the wedding hall, and under the circumstances Xander could hardly
accompany her. Ideally he should have *offered* to make the announcement
himself at the same time he broke the bad news to Anya, but it's
understandable that he didn't think of these details at such a traumatic
time.
> Meanwhile, I don't think that camouflaging
> Anya's part of the story by putting the decision in Xander's hands was
> the right way to play it - HB never feels like it's as much about Anya
> as Xander, and that's backwards, given that their "crimes" are far
> from equivalent.
Agreed that this is disappointing. However in a way it makes sense.
Anya hasn't yet reached a level of self-awareness that a really good
Anya-looks-back-on-her-crimes story would require. That'll come next
season. In the meantime, a more satisfying Anya-centered episode is
coming up in Entropy.
Other stuff: The human-demon prejudice and feuding is mostly weak, but I
have to admit I liked it a bit more this time around. Or at least I
noticed the weakest parts a bit less. The mass brawl, interrupted for a
minute and then quickly resumed, is mildly amusing, reminding me a bit of
certain fight scenes in _Blazing Saddles_ and _Life of Brian_. And I
enjoy Rory's little fake electrocution. The affectionate scenes between
the blushing groom and his best friends were very nice, and Anya's vows
and her reaction when Xander broke off the wedding were heart-breaking.
So there is some good stuff in this episode. But overall, I can't love
it.
Xander addresses a relative as Cousin Carol, and in Family Tara addressed
a relative as Cousin Beth. Does anyone really do this? I don't think
I've ever addressed a cousin as "Cousin [Name]", and I have a lot of 'em.
> Rating: Weak
The good parts keep it at a Decent level for me.
> Season Six, Episode 16: "Normal Again"
> Writer: Diego Gutierrez
> Director: Rick Rosenthal
..
> (And yes, there's a bit of
> a retcon with Buffy's parents hearing about vampires, but easily hand-
> waved away.)
The retcon annoys me not because it is a retcon, but because IMO it's not
a
retcon that fits very well. The early seasons would have played out
differently if Buffy really had been institutionalized for a couple of
weeks
-- most importantly, Joyce would have had to wonder if her daugher was
mentally disturbed after all, not just a rambunctious kid who had fallen
in
with the wrong crowd. But yeah, it's easy enough to ignore and in the end
doesn't detract much from the episode.
Which is a great one. Pretty impressive writing debut (and last hurrah)
for Joss's assistant, isn't it? Almost every scene shines with a gloomy,
heart-rending shine. The sudden sight of Joyce alive and well is a punch
in the gut, but the scene when Buffy makes her choice and has to say
goodbye to her is even better. AOQ already sufficiently praised SMG; I'll
add that KS does a great job with Joyce's devastated reaction when she
realizes what's happened after the "goodbye." (Amongst all the
simultaneous triumph and loss, it's kind of nice that Buffy gets the
chance to say goodbye to her mother, a year after her Sunnydale death.)
Little detail I don't recall noticing before: During the scene in the
living room when Buffy explains what's been happening to her, Dawn starts
clutching Xander's arm, as if she's already afraid of losing Buffy and is
desperate to cling onto what remains of her (Jossian) family.
> Rating: Excellent
Agreed. According to my old argument that season 6 consists of an
excellent beginning and end bookending a lame middle (a scheme which I now
think is too simplistic, but which I still occasionally trot out for
argument's sake), Normal Again is the episode where the lame middle is
left behind and the excellent ending begins.
> Season Six, Episode 17: "Entropy"
> Writer: Drew Z. Greenberg
> Director: James A. Contner
Love the bitter look Jonathan gets when Warren tells him that soon they'll
get everything they ever wanted. What Jonathan *really* wants now is
something he can never have: to not have been involved in a murder.
So did anyone originally think that Anya's "I wish you were never born"
would
lead to a The Wish/_It's a Wonderful Life_ sort of story about a world
without Xander? I didn't.
> needed to get us there, and the jokes work just frequently enough to
> keep the viewer on board. (I like William's idea of how the Anya-
> recruiting-people sequence could be trimmed to end with a montage of
> punchlines, but then how'd they pad out the hour?)
I'm quite happy with those scenes as aired, but I must admit that
William's idea sounds like a lot of fun.
Watching recently, I realized that I've never paid enough attention to
Spike's speech to Buffy, specifically the part when he says "Something
happened to me. The way I feel. About you." Not having paid enough
attention
to it until now, I don't have much to say about it, but it does feel
important that Spike is recognizing how much he's changed. He is at least
partly self-aware, which helps justify the, umm, soul-searching at the end
of
Seeing Red.
It's too bad Faith and pre-soul Spike never really got the chance to bond
over their shared view of Buffy as too uptight and repressed to really
appreciate their approach to life.
I continue to be excessively amused by the way Anya grabs Willow's coffee
as she storms out of the Espresso Pump.
> Rating: Decent
Definitely Good for me, as I said last time, and I'd be willing to
talk about Excellent.
> Season Six, Episode 18: "Seeing Red"
> Writer: Steven S. DeKnight
> Director: Michael Gershman
..
> Does the volume need to
> be turned so high up - Spike's evil becoming clear in the most stock-
> evil way, with Buffy spending so much time loudly begging him to
> stop?
Well, yes, actually, I think it does. Spike has to hit bottom in his
relationship with Buffy, and merely hurting her feelings or even trying to
kill her wouldn't cut it -- he's done that any number of times before, and
so have half the villains on earth. It wouldn't be personal enough.
(Rape is a stock-evil act, but the Spike-Buffy context here is anything
but stock.) I agree that the rape scene is extremely hard to watch (it's
probably the highest-quality scene that I frequently skip over), but
nothing else would suffice to finish off the pre-soul Spike and Buffy.
And hard to watch though it is, I don't find Buffy's part in the rape
scene physically implausible. It's not unprecedented for a vampire to
temporarily get Buffy at a disadvantage before she eventually turns the
tables and wins the fight, and in this case she's fighting an unusually
powerful vampire while hobbled by a painful injury. Nor is it emotionally
implausible. Buffy does have a personal relationship with Spike, so it
feels right to me that she's torn between fighting him physically and
begging him to stop, something she'd never do with Joe Random Vampire.
And dramatically it's *necessary* for the rape attempt to come fairly
close to success, or it might just be shrugged off.
Now that I've had a few years to assimilate the rape scene and the shock
ending, I'm able to appreciate the rest of SR as well. The bedroom scene
where Willow and Tara discuss what happened with Buffy is nice (and
reminds
me a lot of After Life), and their extreme yiggles later in the living
room
are adorable. I think the argument between Buffy and Xander plays out
very
well, and the making-up scene near the end is almost is good (if a lot
mushier). Hey, it just occured to me that at the Bronze, when Xander
confronts Warren, he's looking for his own version of Slayer comfort food,
just like Buffy will a couple of scenes later.
Classic quote that just doesn't work in written form:
WARREN: Say good night, bitch.
BUFFY: Good night, bitch.
> Rating: Good
I say Excellent. Even the few minor problems I mentioned last time didn't
bother me as much this time.
> Additional comments on S6D5: One of the commentaries I was warned
> about was the one for "Hell's Bells." Yeesh. That may be my pick for
> worst commentary track. In particular, compare it others on the
That comment inspired me to watch the commentary track again for the first
time since the DVDs came out. It is indeed pretty weak, neither
informative nor as funny as the participants seem to think. Jokes in
commentary tracks need to be either balanced by interesting information or
else, well, funny. But there is one real bit of info: Joss apparently
wrote the Buffy-Spike conversation at the wedding.
> Adam Bush must be a good actor, at least in this particular role (I'm
> not so fond of his work as Willow in TKIM, though), given that I have
> a weird mental block that keeps me from not getting a hostile reaction
> when he shows up in featurettes and such. There's some conscious
> effort that has to go into even a routine "okay, this is not Warren,
> who is a fictional character. This is the actor who plays him, and
> does not share his personality or opinions in real life." Also, after
> months and months to get used to the idea, the notion of Amber Benson
> and Bush as a real-life couple is still hard to grasp.
IAWTPara.
> Speaking of whom, I do have to echo the question of whether the
> writers intentionally dressed Tara in unflattering outfits. The
> character isn't as attractive to me as most of the other hot chicks,
> but Benson appears just sitting in a chair in street clothes in some
> of the interviews on the bonus disc, and she is so beautiful.
No opinion on the intent there; but I would like to say that even in her
most unflattering outfits, Tara *is* as attractive to me as the other hot
chicks, and more than some.
--Chris
______________________________________________________________________
chrisg [at] gwu.edu On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog.
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