On Apr 7, 12:21=A0am, Arbitrar Of Quality <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Apr 6, 9:43 pm, malspera...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
> > I disliked the haunted house for two reasons. Dawn is at her most
> > childishly screechy and helpless; that song has been sung once too
> > often. And the gore and monsters and broken glass are mere
> > distractions from what should have been truly interesting and
> > terrifying: the return of Joyce as an instrument of evil. Alas, with
> > all the blood dripping on walls and whatnot, there isn't much doubt
> > that this is Evil!Joyce. Her attempts to drive a wedge of distrust
> > between Dawn and Buffy are lame, and never amount to much. (Would that
> > they had: it might have provided more plausible motivation for Dawn
> > later agreeing to evict Buffy from the house.)
>
> Well, I had a different take on both counts. =A0I'm not a huge fan of
> Dawn screaming so continuously (although Trachtenberg is indeed a good
> screamer), but she's not at her most helpless here. =A0She's the one
> walking over broken glass and throwing hurried spells around. =A0
I suppose that by Dawn's usual standards that's effective. OTOH,
hanging up the phone, not getting the hell out of the house...
> The
> other disagreement is about Joyce; I don't think it's at all clear
> that Joyce is the First, although we're meant to consider it as a
> possibility without being certain (much like the characters do in
> "Sleeper"). =A0I think there's a large amount of doubt, to this day.
It ought to be open to question--that's certainly the idea, and if one
can keep the ambiguity in place, it's a great idea. But too much
militates against it. One has to ask, why and how does Joyce show up
at *this* juncture, in *this* way, simultaneously with the first
manifestations of The First, and in the context of a massive, violent
haunting? If she is not The First, then she is appearing to... what,
warn Dawn? OK, but she warns Dawn about Buffy, not the First. To
attack Dawn? To ask Dawn to come to her rescue? None of which gets any
follow-up. Unlike the other 3 Conversations, this one throws out a
bunch of possible plotlines, none of which gets any further
development.
> Within the context of CWDP, I think Joyce's contribution is meant to
> be minimal and, above all, mysterious, rather than terrifying.
Agreed, but
>=A0No, it never amounts to much, but I don't think this episode can be
blam=
ed
> for any of that.
Meh. If I were king of the writers' room, I'd have done away with all
the broken glass and howling wind and blood on the walls and guys
dressed in lizard suits. The appearance by Joyce would have been quite
enough on its own, indeed stronger. The tenor of the rest of the
episode is one of quiet but steadily increasing threat of a nature
difficult to define, intangible and profound, not old-school haunted
houses--which we have learned, after 6.2 seasons, are easily overcome
by our heroes. If, as mariposas points out downthread, the looming
danger is huge and genuinely apocalyptic *because* it comes from
within, then a scene between Dawn and her mother alone would have
presented exactly that tension: Is it Joyce or is it the First, or is
it both, flickering in and out of one another?
There have been other fine episodes without a lot of shoot-em-up
action; I felt only relief every time we switched away from Dawn's
lipsticked, shrieking mouth to the pastoral serenity of the graveyard
and the library. A serenity which was, of course, wholly specious, and
therefore interesting.
~Mal
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