Once More With Commentary: A Buffy Podcast

This week, Buffy learns that her life can be turned upside down by non-supernatural forces, as she struggles to cope with her mother's illness. She shuts Riley out in the process and his reaction is ludicrous, so we try to hash out the timeline of his emotional spiral. Elsewhere, Glory makes a giant Cobra! On Angel, he and Gunn find themselves in the middle of a demonic Ocean's 5 plot to steal a mystical shroud, which drives everyone around it insane. We get back to the show's early Noir roots and Kate makes another (we hope final) appearance.

It's Spike's episode this week as he tells Buffy how he killed two slayers, and we learn his history through flashbacks. He gets more Psych 101 with Buffy than she probably expected, but we learn a lot about his motivations for becoming William the Bloody and the origins of his Buffy obsession. On Angel, Spike's story overlaps with Darla's, who is struggling with her human existence.

We hope you are ready for a discussion of the early filmography of Amy Adams! We’re enjoying the little breather this week before we get heavy into the flashbacks next week, with “Family” on Buffy and “Guise Will Be Guise” on Angel. Tara’s family comes to collect her back home and out her demon side to her new friends, except, wait for it! There is no demon side and her family are just a bunch of misogynists. Luckily, Tara’s got a great group of people they’ll have to go through first. Not Spike though, he doesn’t care. In LA, Angel heads off to see a Swami about his Darla issues, leaving Wesley to fill in when the Wizard Mafia comes calling. Not a great day for Angel, but Wesley sure seems to have a good time!

Hey! Dear Boy did a lot happen this week! Buffy goes on a vision quest to get to the bottom of Joyce’s illness, only to find out the tragic truth about Dawn. Later, she and we meet the Beast, in all her red satin Glory. In LA, a badly sleep-deprived Angel encounters and confronts a demon from his own past.

Spike gets us talking about that time Allie spoiled Dawson’s Creek for Ginny, and then we chart the natural, nuanced exit for Riley that could have been. Speaking of Riley’s exit, Spike begins to suspect his hatred for Buffy might be turning into…something else. On Angel, the team must deal with a telekinetic runaway from Wolfram & Hart, which we don’t have a ton to say about but we like where this season is going. Finally, please enjoy our recommendation for a 90’s Robert Downey Jr. Rom Com marathon!

We get extra chatty this week about adventures in cat sitting before settling in to chat double the Xander and a day in the life of Charles Gunn. On Buffy, Xander finds his life suddenly taken over by a more responsible version, but he turns out to be just another side of the smooshed coin. Meanwhile, we discuss whether Anya or Xander has a healthier approach to villain recovery, but, we’re sorry, we forgot to talk about Buffy’s heinous brown pants. We were just too angry about the onset of Bad Boyfriend Riley. On Angel, we aren’t sure if the Darla stuff works, but we’ll wait and see. We are, however, definitely here for the well-rounded characterization of Gunn and his slow involvement with the team.

We finally meet Dawn this week, and find out all about Buffy’s little sister, who has definitely been here this whole time, totally, don’t you remember? Over in LA, the team confronts a demon from Angel’s past and finds some new digs.

We’re back for Season 5! Aka the start of the era of golden haired, adult Buffy. Dracula is in Sunnydale and everyone is a little too cool with it until they’re not. Meanwhile, over in L.A., Angel and team are racking up victories until Angel makes an oopsie and has to sing some Barry Manilow about it and then joust to fix it. We discuss our meh feelings about these season intros, but we all know the real, big news: Dawn is not coming, Dawn is here. Are we looking forward to next week? Maybe?

We talk weird dreams and repeat dreams this week, as the Scoobies find themselves stalked by the first slayer in their sleep. It’s the odd duck of Buffy finales, but also the dividing line between two very different shows with a clear direction for the fears and questions to be faced by the gang as they move into adulthood. Later, Angel’s finale is less successful as a finale, but works well to shut the door on the film noir journey and embrace the antagonists of Wolfram & Hart, and Angel’s journey with the Shanshu prophecy. Also, hey Darla! You look good for a pile of dust!

We talk dated Matrix references this week in both “Primeval” and “Blind Date”, and whether there are any good reasons to keep Spike around, and we strongly disagree on the success of Buffy’s showdown with Adam. But, for “Primeval”, we do agree this pseudo finale was as good as it could be with a glorified demon of the week promoted to Big Bad. Ultimately, can a finale type episode work when the main emotional stakes don’t belong to our heroine? Maybe this is Riley’s story and Buffy is just wandering in. On Angel, it’s a Wolfram & Hart episode and we all know those are the best episodes.