Buffy Season Two Episode Sixteen: It's one thing to guess and it's one thing to know

[koganbot]

"All you ever do is what everyone else does just so you can say you did it first."

I wonder if Cordelia's closing monologue was written before the rest, and then the question for the scriptwriters was "How do we get here?"

They pull off the near impossible, which is to do an episode that borders on total farce but keep it just serious enough in the right places so that when warmth and emotional risk are called for, what we see really is warmth and emotional risk.

It's the love potion number nine episode (well, witchcraft gone awry, but you know what I mean).

Crucial ongoing trope in the series: someone offers to date or sleep with someone who's been longing for just that offer from just that person, but the other person turns down the offer because in the circumstances the dating or sex won't mean the love that he or she wants it to mean.

As Dave's said, the leap in quality in the middle of this season comes when the show starts to ride on pure character; there's now a surer sense of character, so that analogies etc. become believable. In the first Amy/witchcraft episode back in Season One the dangerous witchcraft was basically something from outside the main characters, external evil that they had to deal with. And the mother-living-through-her-daughter idea was thrown at us as an idea. This time what happens isn't an idea - at least not an idea I'd be able to state: Xander thinking he wants something, getting something else that every man would supposedly want, this getting twisted into horrifying parody and farce, and as a result of this brouhaha he finds that getting what he truly wants has nothing to do with his efforts. Both of these - the effort and the getting - come from his personality. (And the rest is under the cut.)

Cordelia watch: Buffy says to Xander at the start, referring to his dating Cordelia, "I just think you could find someone more... better." They've underestimated Cordelia, and we know this because the show has been giving us close-ups and reaction shots that tell us she's warmer and more vulnerable, and more courageous, than she shows in public, she not knowing herself well enough to know what to show in public. And also Whedon and co. didn't conceive her clearly or deeply at the start, so they're still rebuilding her.

Back in the assassins episode, when, amid the Bugman and the bickering, Xander and Cordy realized they had the hots for each other, I felt I was being cheated, since I'd envisioned the two getting together as a result of some true act of devotion, probably on Cordelia's part - something spontaneously warm and loving, and love-worthy. So finally now we have it, the act of devotion. Cordelia at some point had to take a social and emotional hit for loving Xander, and had to embrace the hit, or else she wasn't truly going to get him. Nothing else would feel right, and I'm glad that Whedon knew this.

OK, but now what? Is Cordy just going to fade back as one of the gang, the Xander-Cordy love life being comic-relief bickering, while Cordy gets to use wrong words to say right things (see quote up top) and helps the group with social and fashion expertise? Are she and Xander going to try to improve one another? The thing is, Cordelia is plenty good enough for Xander, but that doesn't mean she's right for Xander or he's right for her. I can't see this being pain free. Charisma Carpenter, by the way, was ace in that final scene: Cordelia's chatting with her group of girls, then there's Xander, colliding with the group and getting insulted, and it just runs through her body, HERE'S XANDER, and she can't go on with her normal shtick; so she tells off her friends in a beautiful idealistic mangled monologue, strides with purpose and takes Xander by the arm, and then, as they're rounding the corner, she's registering OMG what-have-I-done fear and excitement, expressing this as concern for whether the girls will ever talk to her again, but it's really, OMG, I've just stepped into the unknown, I've put my lot in with a guy, for real. And now what?

Joyce watch: At this point there's no rational reason for Buffy's mom not to be let in on Buffy's identity. And she's got to be figuring something unusual is afoot. But psychologically it still makes sense that she mustn't know - not because her knowing would put the secret at risk, but because the secret is something that belongs to the life of teens in a teen world; Giles and Jenny get to be the sort of weird adults who are in on things, alternative caretakers, even, but emotionally, from the teens' perspective, parents aren't supposed to be able to fathom the secret world of teenagers, and can't be in on it. Lying to grownups isn't lying. That was a maxim I had as a teenager, even if I longed for adults that I didn't have to lie to. It's a psychological rule. We'll see if the show sticks with it.

Interesting: I've been making up my own scenarios of what could happen, then seeing what the show does with something I've already acted out in my mind. I'd imagined that Willow was going to be the first to comprehend that Cordy really cared for Xander. That obviously didn't happen, but something like it still could, Willow getting that it's real for Cordy, even while all of the others including Xander and even Cordy herself have their doubts about Cordy's feelings. (This assumes that it is for real for Cordy, which is what I want.) I suppose that for several episodes Willow's got to stay jealous.

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

When I first watched this I honestly thought Cordy was going to revert to the safety of her girl gang and be 'reset' to a snarky third party who was almost more of an enemy than an ally.

[koganbot]

Well, it's not too late. But seriously, whatever they do with her relationship to Xander or to all of Buffy's friends, they can't revert her to the simpleton caricature she was at the start. They can't uncomplicate her - unless they put a demon in her, but they can do that with anyone. But I think the way the show is going, even that doesn't serve to uncomplicate someone. We'll see how it plays out with Angel.