koganbot | Buffy Season Two Episode Thirteen

"Better do a round robin. Xander, you go first."

"Good call."

"Round robin?"

"It's when everybody calls everybody else's mom and tells them they're staying over at everyone's house."

"Thus freeing us up for world save-age."

OK, promised not to pick at illogic from episode to episode, but at the end of the last one Buffy was so grounded, like, forever, and now she's gallivanting off to surprise parties and pretending to study at friends' houses, etc.

Nice misdirection: in Buffy's dream, her mom asks her if she's really ready, then the plate falls and breaks; we (or I, anyway) assume that "ready" means "for sex." But then irl Buffy's mom asks her if she's really ready to start driving. But the true direction is a misdirection itself, since sex really is one of the episode's questions, while driving is not.

I like that the episode was more psychology than action (and as usual the action didn't measure up to the melodrama); perhaps this is where show evolves to ~~soap opera~~ story arc from monster of the week (though it does have a monster this week, but he's integrated into Spike-Drusilla yukkage). Also liked it for smoothly weaving in practical non-demon-related concerns (e.g., that bit of round-robin dialogue). Was a bit pissed that they added a subplot in which Jenny Calendar is revealed to be more than she seems; my feeling here being "Grrr, this is starting to remind me of Twin Peaks, when they don't know to stop adding twists, all the twists undoing the impact of twists." But we'll see. I think I'd have been happy if they had shipped Angel off for a couple of years, which would have taken Jenny off the hook. (Not that my happiness would have been particularly for Jenny; just would be glad to get rid of Old Sorrow Eyes for a bit.)