Buffy Season Two Episode Eight
Oct. 18th, 2009 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbot"I'm so used to you being a grown-up, and then I find out you're a person."
"Most grown-ups are."
"Who would have thought?"
"Some are even short-sighted, foolish people."
"So, after all this time we finally find out we do have something in common."
Rupert's dark ages. Solid episode, very few missteps in tone, Willow and Angel eventually providing an ingenious solution to the problem, and this time the end-of-episode platitudes between Giles and Buffy are genuinely touching, she* offering him support and understanding (she gets that his being a watcher separates him from normal life), he demonstrating that duties and desires (and duties and other duties) can conflict for him, just as they do for her, and he doesn't always know the right balance - so he gets to screw it up too, hence is real, a person. Nice staging, too: talking, facing each other in the hallway, reaction shots, his rueful confession, her concern, then the two settling back against the wall in a two shot as they affirm their similarity.
But overall, not counting this ending, I didn't quite engage. Too much plot, not enough themes, so it's just another TV show about some dinky demon occupying people and you've gotta fend it off and outwit it.
The series still hasn't reached an integrated personality for Cordelia. Of course, the same person can be self-centered one moment and concerned for others in the next (Xander often making this shift), and the show is softening and humanizing her bitchiness and silliness (recasting her as clueless rather than malicious: "Why does everyone always yell my name? I'm not deaf and... I can take a hint. [Pause] What's the hint?"), but nonetheless, they still divide her and dole her out based on what they want out of a scene: comedy, OK she's superficial and transparently manipulative; tension, OK she's bitchy; warmth, OK she's tender and courageous. I can see what they're trying to do, I think, and I think they'll get there. The warmth is in her actions which will eventually speak louder than her words. And Xander's instinct in battle (just shown in an instant) is to protect her. Then, with leisure in the library, the two go back to being nasty to one another, a scene that was overplayed and I didn't buy it, but the set-up is there: Xander will be the last one to figure out his own feelings.
*Right, OK, "she" doesn't feel right, but neither does "her." I think "she" is right, 'cause "offering" is acting as a present participle rather than as just a gerund (I just looked up the distinction today on Wikipedia; can't say I quite get it, but "offering" is functioning as a verb rather than the start of a noun phrase, I guess, though I suppose it can go either way [as could "you being a grown-up" and "your being a grown-up," but the first is vastly more idiomatic for Buffy]). Whereas "his being a watcher" is clearly right. EDIT: Oops, xpost.
"Most grown-ups are."
"Who would have thought?"
"Some are even short-sighted, foolish people."
"So, after all this time we finally find out we do have something in common."
Rupert's dark ages. Solid episode, very few missteps in tone, Willow and Angel eventually providing an ingenious solution to the problem, and this time the end-of-episode platitudes between Giles and Buffy are genuinely touching, she* offering him support and understanding (she gets that his being a watcher separates him from normal life), he demonstrating that duties and desires (and duties and other duties) can conflict for him, just as they do for her, and he doesn't always know the right balance - so he gets to screw it up too, hence is real, a person. Nice staging, too: talking, facing each other in the hallway, reaction shots, his rueful confession, her concern, then the two settling back against the wall in a two shot as they affirm their similarity.
But overall, not counting this ending, I didn't quite engage. Too much plot, not enough themes, so it's just another TV show about some dinky demon occupying people and you've gotta fend it off and outwit it.
The series still hasn't reached an integrated personality for Cordelia. Of course, the same person can be self-centered one moment and concerned for others in the next (Xander often making this shift), and the show is softening and humanizing her bitchiness and silliness (recasting her as clueless rather than malicious: "Why does everyone always yell my name? I'm not deaf and... I can take a hint. [Pause] What's the hint?"), but nonetheless, they still divide her and dole her out based on what they want out of a scene: comedy, OK she's superficial and transparently manipulative; tension, OK she's bitchy; warmth, OK she's tender and courageous. I can see what they're trying to do, I think, and I think they'll get there. The warmth is in her actions which will eventually speak louder than her words. And Xander's instinct in battle (just shown in an instant) is to protect her. Then, with leisure in the library, the two go back to being nasty to one another, a scene that was overplayed and I didn't buy it, but the set-up is there: Xander will be the last one to figure out his own feelings.
*Right, OK, "she" doesn't feel right, but neither does "her." I think "she" is right, 'cause "offering" is acting as a present participle rather than as just a gerund (I just looked up the distinction today on Wikipedia; can't say I quite get it, but "offering" is functioning as a verb rather than the start of a noun phrase, I guess, though I suppose it can go either way [as could "you being a grown-up" and "your being a grown-up," but the first is vastly more idiomatic for Buffy]). Whereas "his being a watcher" is clearly right. EDIT: Oops, xpost.
