Buffy Episode Review
In which we go back to the beginning.
What Did I Think?
It's so nice to be able to enjoy an episode of Buffy again.
That's not to say season six was bad. I appreciated on an intellectual level what the story was trying to say, and was pleasantly surprised that they didn't go the route of glamorizing Buffy and Spike's abusive relationship. Those episodes were hard to watch, however. The story was well-told and I cared what happened to the characters, so it was painful to watch them making bad decisions. And the season was relentless. It went on and on and no one was happy. I avoided almost every rerun all summer.
So "Lessons" was fun. Buffy was happy, and she and Dawn seemed to be getting along better. The scene at the start of Buffy and Dawn fighting the vamp gave me the fidgets. The vampire getting his foot stuck on a root and asking for help getting out of his grave, however? That is the kind of twisted humor I remember from the first season.
I argue that Buffy was giving Dawn a last minute reminder of how dangerous going to school on the Hellmouth can be, in preparation for her first day. Not that she was teaching Dawn how to be a Slayer.
Xander is also doing well, and he got a great line at the end, surveying the hole in the girl's room floor and commenting, "Hello contractor-y goodness." Anya, on the other hand, seems to be doing horribly. I am referring, of course, to that hideous blouse she was wearing. This after the round-collar shirt and checked capris of the season finale. What is up with the pilgrim chic? Tearing my eyes away from her outfit, it was kind of sad that, after growing distant from Xander and the others, Anya is also losing her demon friends.
Willow's first scene with Giles fell flat. While it's good that she has obviously been working over the summer to a) control her magic and b) deal with what she did, the dialogue was a bit vague. The couple of lines about how she expected Giles and the others to punish her were good; not so much the speeches about the connectedness of the world.
One of the things I always liked about the character was her enthusiasm, particularly about subjects that weren't necessarily interesting. Instead, Willow sounded dazed and resigned, as if she's being forced to learn about these things, not genuinely eager to learn. Not even the flower from Paraguay was exciting her much, though I suppose that the lame CGI effects may have sucked some of the fun out of it. The second scene, where she described feeling the Hellmouth open, was far more dynamic, visually and emotionally, with real tension in her voice and a final second zoom through the house, with Giles and Willow framed in the doorway.
Dawn did not annoy me, because she didn't whine. She even came up with a pretty good cover when the zombie faked a pencil at her eye. (Better than Buffy's, certainly.) The fact that she's made friends doesn't bother me, either, as long as they don't take too much attention away from established characters. The cast is getting pretty large, with a lot of juggling going on.
And Spike? Cool entrance, man. I was still going "nice" from Buffy's dive up and over and tuck and roll past the zombies, when she opened that door and there was Spike. I can see where he might have gone crazy. Buffy's reaction was balanced between holding back, remembering what happened between them, and sympathy due to the fact that he had obviously misplaced his mind. It was interesting that he didn't (or couldn't) tell her that he has his soul back. Guess they're saving that for another episode.
Which brings us to the Big Bad. I'm falling into the camp that thinks it's the First Evil introduced back in "Amends." She/He/It already took credit for bringing Angel back from Hell to torment him, and demonstrated It's shape-shifting abilities while It did. So, my question is, are we going to see more of It taking on the faces of all these villains, or will It finally choose a form we haven't met before? And does the fact that Buffy was the last face It took hint that we may finally find out more about the history of the Slayer?
All in all, this was a promising start to the season. After a year of misery, I can hardly wait to see what happens next.