Unspoiled! Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Roshawn joins us!

We get Faith being terrible, as she tends to be, and a weird gambit for a box full of spiders. Why spiders? Because this is Buffy, that's why. Plus more flirtations between Weasel and Cordelia. The mayor is trying to Ascend, whatever that means, and that involves getting into Buffy and Angel's heads about the nfuture of their relationship. And not only is he not wrong, he's fucking right. These two are not good together. Break up already.

Also, the prom comes along, and we get another mad scientist student and his dumb ideas. He got turned down by a girl and now is training werewolves to kill well-dressed people. It's not any fun. I really wish the show would learn that if you have an important character message to show us, you don't need a new evil thing for Buffy to fight. There are already rogue vampires around, you can just bring them in for the bad thing to defeat and spend more time on the meaty character stuff. But it does lead to an important validation for poor Buffy, where the school acknowledges that she has their back and deserves recognition for it.

Join us next week for the live finale! Become a patron so that you can!

Time for some more Buffy!

I gotta be honest, this first episode pissed me off something fierce. I've said before how I'm not a fan of Faith's decent into evil, and despite all of Bitches trying to explain it to me, I'm not buying it. Her behavior seems forced and not consistent, and we get mologuing as exposition instead of character traits introduced earlier that would explain this. I like the idea of Faith going rogue. I don't like the execution. Add tot that the pseudo-reemergence of Angelus, which I'm bored with, and this first episode was a slog to get through. I liked the twist of Angel being in on it, but, well, it wasn't an interesting turn.

The bright spot, however, is the mayor. I love his amiable, friendly disposition and how he stays in power, playing demons off one another and using the carrot rather than the stick. Vampire hiearchy is fickle, and the mayor thinks long-term. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of his machinations.

Earshot was tough for a different

We have the return of alternate universe Willow, and I can't get enough of her.

Anyanka is angry that she's a normal human now, stuck in the body of a Socal teenager. She needs her powers back, and the goat demon isn't playing along.

So she approaches the only witch she knows, Willow. Michael is nowhere to be found and Amy is still a rat. so Willow seems to be the senior witch on the scene. She needs to make a rift in the space-time continuum to get her amulet back, and that goes as well as one could expect- vampire willow is brought forth into our dimension. And boy does she look good.

I legit love this episode, but I'm a little frustrated. One, it feels like it needed more room to breathe, or maybe just cut the Faith stuff in favor of more conflict resolution. Or maybe even two episodes to solve this. Second, as much as I love the contrast between VampWillow and SweaterWillow, SweaterWillow doesn't seem very rounded as a character- she still behaves like she would in a cartoon. I'm really hoping her character starts landing on solid ground soon, because I'm interested. I just need her to behave organically instead of what is required by the script.

Also, we have a special guest, Mocha Fapalatte, to talk about Willow's outfit.

I don't want to give the impression that I didn't like this character arc for Faith- the decent from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Neutral/Evil is a wonderful development for this show, which despite being almost *good* at this point, is stil stagnating as far as the status quo is concerned. I'm just not buying the particular actions Faith takes during her decent- they feel forced rather than organic.

But to recap, Faith is reckless and she's rubbing off on Buffy. She dives into problems head first and doesn't plan at all. Also she has no problem stealing from the local weapons shop- which I actually agree with. Given how much fucked up shit Buffy and Faith take care of for the townspeople, I think filing an insurance claim is a fair price for this shopkeeper to pay so that he doesn't get eaten like poor crunchy witch.

But there's an accident when fighting the Eliminati- Faith accidentally kills Allen, the useless deputy Mayor. And then tries to dump the body in the ocean. This leads to a spiral of guilt and blame that Faith handles like an immature person- and that's the part I don't believe. Every vampire they kill is someone they failed to save, and I feel like everyone would understand that a civilian killed in the fray is unfortunate. I could see Faith having guilt about it, but what I don't buy is her blaming Buffy and strangling Xander. The show is pushing too hard to make her seem nonredeemable, when her turn to the dark side could be completely un-evil. Also, fuck Angel and his "you have a taste for it now" bullshit.

Somehow this show made me enjoy a full episode of Xandar.

Maggie Benzvi joins us for another round of Buffy! And we discuss vagina glue, fetishes, and ice skating.

As for the episodes . . .

Buffy is having Daddy issues because her father doesn't show for her birthday. Meanwhile Giles is preparing for a test for the Slayer- depowering her and tossing her in a walled-up house with a vampire who was a serial killer before he was turned. And I'm not a fan of what the watchers are up to- this seems like an organization that is a circle-jerk at this point. The can't keep their members from going rogue and they have stupid things that hurt trust with the Slayer. Naturally, the watchers left to guard the vampire have really stupid rules and aren't very observant, so one gets eaten and the other gets turned. And when poor Joyce is dragged into all this . .. well, some quick thinking on Buffy's part saves the day. Which is the whole point. I'm not sure I buy her renewed trust in Giles, though.

But the second episode goes Xander and goes hard. I did not expect this one to be my favorite. Because Xander is pretty damn useless, he gets sidelined by the rest of the gang in fighting a new threat. But instead of trying to raise the stakes with the world about to end again, it follows Xander as he tries to get laid, doesn't, makes some terrible new friends, kills them, and saves the day when no one is paying attention. This is a cool twit on the Buffy formula, following someone else in their own adventure. Plus baby Michael Cudlitz!

Ms. Calendar returns as an apparition, along with a couple of other victims from Angel's past. Also, there's a pitchfork mob.

The first episode is pretty Meh. I was intrigued by the flashbacks to Angel's adventures, and wished we could have spent an entire episode int here, just learning what the hell went on during all those years. But Buffy is forced to share Angel's dreams/memories. I've said before that I'm not a fan of Angel at all, but that's mostly of brooding, mopey angel of the present day. I like his backstory.

It turns out that his visions are created by another demon who wants him to kill himself- and I would have been fine with the episode if it didn't add that detail. Angel can and should deal with his guilt, that's a decent character study, but we do we have to bring another demon into nit? Can't we just let these things happen without a random antagonist? And then is snows. And Faith is there. And Angel and Buffy are back together but not really? Whatever.

The second episode was far more fun, and Joyce is a very underused character. This time she's roped in by another demon, one that manipulates regular-ass civilians into it's craziness to get them to kill witches. Mostly by making two random dead children appear. So Joyce does what she thinks is right, rallies the community to take down the witches. And Willow happens to be a part of the only coven in town, along with Amy and some random maybegay goth dude named Michael.

Poor Amy escapes the wrath of the mob by turning into a rat, and there's some genuine good comedy with Cordelia being the one to resuce everyone with a firehose, and Xander and Oz falling through the roof. Good, funny, well-crafted. I hope they figure out how to cure Amy soon.

This is what I'm here for!
We get Spike returning because Drusilla has broken his heart. Which doesn't surprise me, as she's not really the monogamous type. Spike is your regular ridiculous boy who can't understand that the relationship is over, and he wants a love potion to make her love him again. And yet he still seems to be the most emotionally mature person here. His cunning plan involves kidnapping Willow and getting her to cast a love spell, and Xander because he happens to be in the same room. But Willow is working on a way to kill her desire for Xander, and putting them in the same room for an extended amount of time isn't going to help that.
Once again we get more angst about Angel which I don't even really want to talk about. Break up or be a couple, I don't mind either way, just stop talking about wanting to a be a couple. Also, I was right to hate the Willow/Xander pairing, as both Cordy and Oz save their significant others only to find them about to do it. And poor Cordy ends up with some rebar through her chest for her trouble. She may be self-centered, but she's the only one I felt for in all of this.
But then we get to The Wish, which, honestly, was too short, The rest of the season should have been this alternate universe, with vampire Willow and Xander. Cordy wishes that Buff never showed her face in Sunnydale, and we get the darkest timeline which is far and away the most entertaining thing the show has ever done. I loved every second of it. I loved Larry being in the new scooby gang, I loved Cordelia having a lethal threesome with Willow and Xander, I loved Angel being the whipping boy for the vampire clique.
Cordy dies pretty early on, and it's Giles who figures out that the demon Anyanka is to balme for this terrible reality. And I wish he didn't, because I wanted this to be at least a 10 episode arc.

Buffy is in deep shit.

In our first episode, Principal Snyder has drafted everyone into fundraising for band uniforms. Snyder is a tool, though, as the mayor has a nefarious plot to drug all the townsfolk with overpriced chocolate, making them regress to middle-school age, without a care in the world and forgetting what adulting is. This was a super fun episode, mostly because Anthony Stewart Head generally plays the role of Giles like he's being asked to work on Sunday without overtime. But now that he regresses to Ripper, he's actually fun to watch and engaging. And he fucks Joyce on a cop car. That's a ship I was adamantly opposed to, and then changed my mind halfway through the episode.

It turns out that the whole thing was a distraction, so that some ancient demon snake can get a snack on some babies. I'm sticking by my theory that he's hurt by the fat shaming (his name means Glutton) so he eats babies instead of fully-grown humans to cut his calories.

In our second episode, the truth comes out about Angel. Buffy's credibility with the group takes a massive hit, and quite frankly I agree with them. Angel is dangerous, and he's not in control of his good side. This episode wasn't as fun as the previous, but it was paced better. The reveal of the other watcher as a rogue agent and her manipulations of the group played out well, and the wounds are not healed at the end of the day. I wonder what this will mean for the Buffy/Faith relationship.

Back with two episodes of Buffy!
The first one is nothing to write home about. Once again we have an uncomfortable abusive relationship, and that really goes nowhere. There is a bit of a red herring in that the prime suspect is Oz- but honestly they need to fire whoever made that costume. Why didn't they use the one from last season? He looks like a Geico caveman.
But it turns out that the real killer is some asshole who's been experimenting with some kind of demonic Jekyll/Hyde serum. It's not interesting. Neither is Buffy's maybe-Canadian boyfriend Scott.
Onto the homecoming dance! Buffy decides to pick a fight with Cordelia, and I'm on Cordy's side here. There is no win state for Buffy, all she can do is make Cordelia lose, and that's exactly what happens. Meanwhile, Mr. Trick has organized an assassin's ball, including the werewolf hunter, the cowboy vampire and his dayhooker wife, a pair of German twins, and a yellow lizard thing. This episode was awesome, even if Buffy's dress was terrible. Also, I am not a fan of the Willow/Xander pairing.

Faith is no Kendra. I have to say that up front.

As if Buffy doesn't have enough to deal with, along comes the woman who replaces her. And she's much more interesting than Buffy, and prettier, too. Even if she does wear pants that seem to be made of fruit roll-ups.

Honestly this episode felt a little rushed. We're introduced to a new antagonist or two, and there's apparently some tension building between Buffy and Faith. Dealing with the past seems to be a theme, as Buffy struggles to admit to Giles what went down between her and Angel, and Faith being unable to confront the death of her watcher. Also Zander has a thing for slayers. It must hurt that Willow is the only woman on earth he doesn't have a boner for.

Only one episode this week, guys. Bitches tell me next week the episodes fit together better.