Once More With Commentary: A Buffy Podcast

This week, we have to talk about Willow. But first, it’s Halloween in Sunnydale! Dawn proves why you should always just stay home and watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Anya is thrilled when Xander finally announces their engagement. And then Willow heads to the dark side. Blerg. On Angel, as usual, the social message is a little hit or miss, but it’s a great Cordelia episode and we feel for Wesley. Poor man just has some bad breaks coming to him.

Ginny’s finally excited to talk about both episodes this week! Is “Life Serial” a nuanced take on toxic masculinity? We think it’s accidental, but it works super well 18 years later! Also, Buffy’s friends should definitely be paying rent, right? On Angel, Fred makes a decision to stay in LA and be part of the team, and we meet her charming parents.

This week on Buffy, Giles puts Willow in her place, Buffy must confront adult responsibilities, and we meet a trio of nerds up to no good. Basically no one seems to be thinking things through very well. On Angel, the gang runs up against an old man eager to relive his younger days, and Angel’s cockiness lands him in an ineffectual position.

This week, we ask the important question for this season: “Am I going to hate Willow?” What we really mean is that, though this Buffy season as a whole tends to get a less than enthusiastic response, man are they really laying some good groundwork here from the very start. On Angel, it’s a real one for the Angel universe as the team must confront their own relationships with each other, and Gunn seems to finally have to choose between his old life and his new one.

This week, Buffy’s friends realize their spell worked, and Buffy has a rough transition from the grave back to life. In LA, Angel and his team must find out what is causing Cordelia’s visions to manifest physically before one kills her.

We talk about the premieres of Season 6 of Buffy and Season 3 of Angel. On both shows, our heroes are dealing with the death of Buffy. The Scoobies go in to dark magics in order to bring back their friend, and Giles makes a choice about where he needs to be. Angel faces down a former friend and wrestles with knowing he survived Buffy’s death, and Fred struggles to venture out of her room. To be fair, she has taco delivery so, why leave?

It’s a long one this week, but it’s “The Gift” so we know you’ll forgive us! It’s a treasure trove of metaphors as Buffy makes the ultimate sacrifice and the show grows up. We also chat about getting in the holiday spirit and “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb,” and it actually has some cool parallels to “The Gift!”

The places are getting set for the finale, but we have timeline questions about Buffy, and Buffy’s reactions and fear in the face of Glory feel a little forced to us, but we are ready to see what it all leads up to, especially after noticing all the ground work being laid for Season 6! On Angel, we love the symbolism of the title for once, as everyone finds out the dark reflection of the Pylea sunshine and princess-making.

This week, we chat the joys of plane travel and Waco, TX, before getting into “Spiral” and “Over the Rainbow”. First up, we seriously question the Knights of Byzantium and whether they detract from the success of Glory as a villain, and discuss Ben’s hard choices and bad decisions. On Angel, we are enjoying watching the gang in the daylight after they all travel to Pylea, though this trip is just getting started.

A lot happens on both shows this week! On Buffy, how much of a father figure is Giles supposed to be? Willow learns the wrong lessons from a fight, and then, Glory finds the wrong key, with bad consequences for Tara. On Angel, as portals open across LA, the gang is struggling to find happiness with their current lots in life, and the Host comes to Angel for help tracking down a demon.