I started writing this sometime last month, and I'm going to finish it if
it's the last thing I do. (Which is not to say I'll make it *good* or
anything....)
In alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer Arbitrar Of Quality <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Six, Episode 19: "Villains"
> Writer: Marti Noxon
> Director: David Solomon
..
> villain, without ever taking a step that doesn't seem like her. Plus,
> revenge is fun,
And that's *exactly* the effect ME is going for! But seriously, with Dark
Willow here, as well as the Stewart-demon in HB and Anya getting her
vengeance on again, and with Holtz and Connor, not to mention Angel
himself, on the other show, 2001-02 turned out to be the year of vengeance
for ME. I guess next year will be the year of the heroes being confronted
by enemies that seem to be impossible to fight. (Maybe that could also be
the Alliance on Firefly?) BtVS S4 and AtS S1 were obviously the year of
the hero finding his or her way in a new environment. And S5/S2?
Obviously the year of dealing with crazy evil chicks and pseudo-medieval
warriors.
> and I love the look at Warren as things start to not
> go his way and he gets to die painfully in full awareness of how
> pathetic he is.
It couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow. The abrupt unravelling of
his attempt at cool villainy in the demon bar is almost as satisfying as
watching Willow dissect his mind (not his body). One little detail I like
is Rack asking him why, if he led the Trio, his guys aren't helping him
now. It's Warren's own fault that he's in so much trouble, and his own
fault that he's now facing it all alone.
> quotables? Along with its great lines, or at least great deliveries
> of lines like "I'm not coming back," "Villains" is also teeming with
> non-quotables, leaden chunks of ponderous abstract statements that
> make for the opposite of a crackling conversation. If anyone wants to
> make a list, I'll start with "there are limits to what we can do.
> There should be. Willow doesn't want to believe that. And now she's
> messing with forces that want to hurt her."
That one particular bit doesn't sparkle, true, but it isn't nearly bad
enough to take me out of the moment. I can buy it as Buffy's way of
articulating a principle at a moment when most of her usual humorous
conversational quirks would be badly out of place. (Maybe you can even
see the ponderous and abstract aspect as foreshadowing of Buffy's groping
efforts at being a general in S7.) I do agree, though, that it would have
been even better if they had come up with a more concrete and vivid way
for her to say it. Xander explaining his feelings by saying "I've had
blood on my hands all day" -- now that's concrete and vivd. ...
But anyway, I like this whole scene. I like the way the characters cover
a lot of topics in relatively few words (unlike the in-the-name-of-Osiris
scene from the teaser), yet without feeling rushed. I like the way the
ghost of Joyce hangs over it -- even if no one else sees Buffy's hairstyle
as reminiscent of Joyce's, you all have to admit that her picture is
clearly visible in the background for a reason. Between being raised from
the dead and losing Joyce, Buffy certainly does have the first-hand
experience AOQ mentions in his TTG section. And I like being reminded
that when the going gets tough, Buffy, Xander and Dawn can have serious
disagreements without getting into a fight.
> you into trivia) an Excellent, since it's exciting enough to almost
> deserve one, especially once you throw in that mind-blowing ending
> sequence.
BTW, this was the first time I brought myself to watch the flaying scene
since the Season 8 comics started. I had even watched the whole Seeing
Red-Grave run last fall, but skipped over the final few moments of
Villains. I guess I was afraid that the thought of Amy watching
offscreen, about to save and/or resurrect Warren, would spoil it for me.
But when the time came, I didn't think of S8 at all. This was partly
because I've had so much time to assimilate TLWH, but mainly a tribute to
the power of those final scenes.
> Rating: Good
Last time I put Villains on the Good/Excellent border. Today I'm feeling
more decisive, or less precise, so I'll just say Excellent. Aside from
the book-sucking and Warren-flaying, I really like the gradual development
of Dark Willow, and what I can only call the emotional **** of Buffy,
Xander and Dawn struggling to deal with their mounting losses. But the
episodes on either side of it are still higher Excellents.
> Season Six, Episode 20: "Two To Go"
> Writer: Douglas Petrie
> Director: Bill Norton
..
> What was that about crackling dialogue? William called TTG "an
> absolute wonderland of quotability, perhaps second only to
> Doppelgangland in that respect" last time around.
My biggest laugh this time might have been at "Okay, first of all those
were sonic disrupters. Second of all, you are sadness personified!"
Meanwhile, Sadness Personified's mantra of "We didn't do anything" is not
especially quotable, but it still infuriates me every time. Looking back
on him with S7 (and AtS S5) in mind, I think the key is that Andrew is the
ultimate empty man. He's so weak-willed that Warren was able to warp him
into a nasty villain, and after a crisis got through to him in
Storyteller, a better leader will warp him just as sincerely into a
fighter for good. But if he had met Buffy and friends first, then lost
them and found Warren, he could just as easily have made the same
transition in the other direction.
> It's strange
> trading the depression and high drama of much of S6 for what's
> basically a live-action comic book, but I certainly won't complain if
> it reminds me why I've gotten so much enjoyment out of a few fast-
> paced movies and comics in my time.
Of course it's not just an action-adventure story. The emotional content
is still there, just as it is in the best comic books and action movies.
> Now that she's taken out Tara's
> killer, a more Willowish sense of fun emerges from our favorite black-
> eyed girl; she's enjoying being the star of the show even more than I
> enjoy watching it. Why is evil so much fun?
Because it's so liberating, of course! (Note: I realize your question was
rhetorical.) Willow doesn't just enjoy the prospect of completing her
vengeance, she seizes the op****tunity to act on all sorts of buried
impulses, from shutting Dawn up to surpassing Buffy. Only the evil one
has access to this level of fun, of course. Note that Willow keeps
throwing insults like "Super*****" and the ass thing at Buffy, but Buffy
never responds in kind. Even as her anger builds, Buffy never finds the
slightest bit of fun or emotional fulfillment in fighting her best friend.
The big Buffy-Willow fight scene remains one of my favorites. OBS is, of
course, entirely right about the lame moment when Buffy gets stunned just
long enough for Willow to take out Anya, but for me it's not lame enough
to seriously hurt the fight as a whole.
> Also one of the few
> (only?) times _Buffy_ goes for a surprise character appearance at the
> end; that's normally more ATS's territory.
Maybe Adam at the end of The I in Team could count as another example,
though he was a new character. Anyway, Giles's reappearance was a thrill
back in 2002, and it still is now.
> Rating: Excellent
Excellent for me too (up from a less decisive borderline Good/Excellent
last time).
> Season Six, Episode 21: "Grave"
> Writer: David Fury
> Director: James A. Contner
Have you noticed how Dark Willow's eyes change from normal to all-black
and back again over the course of this disk? If there's a significance to
this it eludes me -- the changes don't seem to correspond to changes in
Willow's mood, her current level of magic power, or anything else. But it
makes for one great little effect: when she tells Giles "I've gone pro,"
and we can see her eyes fill up with black.
> fit, and then executing them in a decent but flawed manner. Giles's
> reaction to Buffy telling him about her life caught me off guard but
> makes sense as something they both needed; from there, the
> interactions are intriguing in where there's healing and where there's
> still distance (also, Anya vying for attention always kills me).
> Sadly it brings back all my issues about Giles abandoning her, reduced
> to a brief brushed-off apology, like the show's letting him off the
> hook - granted, it's the season finale, we don't have time to sort
> through every emotional reaction anyone's ever had.
I don't agree when Buffy says that Giles did the right thing, but I can
understand her feeling that way now. So much has happened since Giles
left, both good and bad, that by now a Buffy who had gone through all of
it *with* Giles would be an alternate universe Buffy, almost unimaginable
to her now. It would be almost like imagining her life if Angel hadn't
lost his soul, or something.
> The plotting
> certainly has its moments: particularly, Willow becoming more of a
> threat to the world the more she gets focused on fixing people's
> problems is too perfect to pass up. Unfortunately, there's enough of
> the plot that involves outside forces being brought in out of nowhere,
> is relayed to us by Giles lying on the floor and slowly mumbling bits
> of exposition, and only the bits that the script has arbitrarily given
> him permission to reveal. The climax featuring a carpenter saving
> humanity through his love (there's a reason it's a classic, I guess)
> is pretty sappy and heavy-handed, but damned if it doesn't work great,
> even on re-watch.
Willow raising the temple is PF cool, even if the effigy of Proserpexa
does look a bit like an illuminated lawn decoration from Satanic
Christmas. (And I'm not sure about the idea that an earthquake buried
something at the *top* of a high bluff. Maybe that goes to sup****t the
theory that it wasn't a natural earthquake.) However, while it looks
cool, it does feel a little contrived. I wish they had worked a mention
of the temple into an earlier episode, to lay the foundations. Oh well.
IIRC the commentary track reveals that DF meant for us to understand that
the temple was buried by the same earthquake that buried the Master, and
apparently didn't realize that the phrase "70 years ago" would mean a
different year in 2002 than in 1997.
> And Buffy summing up the season is also sappy and
> heavy-handed, the difference being that it's not such great TV. I'm
> not so convinced that the symbolism needs to be spelled out so
> bluntly, but even if we take it as a given that it does, everything
> from the underwhelming special effects to the clunky staging to the
> soppy speech falls substantially flat, leaving one's last impression
> of the amazing S6 as something less than amazing.
Buffy's final speech certainly should have been trimmed down -- which
would have been easy, since she hits many of the same points several times
each. And the walking-into-the-sunny-garden part of the final montage was
a bit *too* happy, though it's balanced by the sadder parts of the
montage. But there are other parts of the ending where I like the
execution as much as the idea. Willow's heartbreaking sobbing in Xander's
arms is one, and the symbolism of Buffy crawling out of the grave is
another -- "obvious" would be an understatement, but it really works for
me.
The dirt monsters are another weak part, but I like Willow's condescending
attitude when she sends them. "Aw, Buffy still wants to save the world.
Isn't that cute! Here, have some monsters to fight while I put the world
out of its misery." She's still Dark Willow, now beyond getting pleasure
at hurting her friends, but still a smug, arrogant bitca.
> Willow's head-rush isn't as excruciating as I'd expected it to be on
> re-watching, if you care.
Glad to hear it.
> Rating: Good
I'll give it a Good too.
> Additional comments on S6D6: I managed to make it through the thread
> without mentioning (except elliptically here) a certain character who
> dominates all the discussions despite appearing for a grand total of
> maybe four minutes on this disc (a few seconds of which are really
> really im****tant, but still)...
An interesting choice, unusual, perhaps controversial; but I liked it.
Since you mention that character, this time around I proved to myself that
I could FF or track-skip over every Spike scene on this disc without
detracting one bit from the climactic story. All of them, even the
legitimately im****tant part, are really setup for S7. They could also be
called a resolution to Spike's S6 story, I guess, but they still aren't
part of disc six's story at all.
(But I do like the irony of Xander's comment that "after last night, all
bets are off about what Spike will do." For some reason this is the most
enjoyable of the disc's ironic Spike-related comments. Maybe I
appreciated it more because it got to work its irony on its own, instead
of being spotlighted as the lead-in to another Spike scene.)
> doesn't go evil or at least highly ambiguous at some point?) Also, if
> nothing else, pre-veiny jet-black Willow is incredibly hot.
See? Everything in Dark Willow is rooted in Just Willow....
> My ratings ticked upward for a couple episodes, but otherwise stayed
> the same on re-watching. I'm not showing my numerical work, because I
> don't think anyone else cares, but in terms of both mean and
> pro****tion of good episodes, the numbers agree with my gut feeling
> that S6 is pretty clearly the second-best season so far, behind Season
> Three.
For me, S6 is probably the season that has improved the most in hindsight.
In the old days (2004 or 2005), I used to put S6 and S7 in the same
category, as a cut below S4 and S5, which in turn were a cut below the
golden age of S3 and the second half of S2. But now, while I'm not
positive I'd call S6 my second favorite season, these days it's definitely
a candidate.
--Chris
______________________________________________________________________
chrisg [at] gwu.edu On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog.
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