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Buffy Rewatch: Season 2, Episodes 20-22

2x20: "Go Fish"

Buffy all melancholy staring at the ocean, my poor baby

Insecure boy would rather suffer than accept help from girl. Shocking.

Is that fucking Leonard Snart?? It is, holy shit, I forget how many actors I recognise had background roles in this

The bloody shedded skin lying on the beach?? Horror movie much?

Not Snyder pressuring Willow to falsely pass a kid who's failing on account of putting in zero effort just because he's on the swim team?? You know damn well he's doing it because he thinks he can get away with intimidating the people-pleaser seventeen-year-old. Frankly, I would've liked to see him try that shit on Jenny.

Buffy, this boy ain't shit, you know that

"Oh, it's not me I'm worried about" - that's my fucking girl, y'all!!

He actually used the "look what she's wearing" justification, this whole episode makes me so fucking angry, he deserved what he got!!

"Try to dress more appropriately" - I'm going to fucking scream!

One of these days I'm going to write an essay on rape culture in Buffy

Again, one of the only times I agree with Xander

And it's the Creature from the Black Lagoon!

"From whence it came? I'm spending way too much time around you."

Ah, yes, perfect father-daughter bonding activity: fishing!

Something about the toxic sports culture

Priorities, Cordy, fucking hell

This is fucking horrific, even understanding it as a metaphor for how the patriarchy perpetuates rape culture.

So often I think of Giles' line from "I, Robot, You, Jane" - "Still, if you'd been anyone but the Slayer..." - like, I shudder to think what would have happened to Buffy in most of these situations if she'd been just a normal girl

I love Cordelia so much

2x21: "Becoming, Part 1"

Oh Liam was such an unappealing douchebag, wasn't he?

Darla was hot as fuck though, I'd let her bite me

Something about how turning a vampire is so often portrayed as a sexual act

Xander just lying there 😂

I want Angelus dead. Like, immediately. Smug motherfucker.

Giles being "the best authority on obscure relics" in the entire museum and heritage sector, that's my man

I love him so much, finally someone who doesn't just say "sure, let's open the ancient artefact we know jack shit about!"

Oh Snyder's such a killjoy

Drusilla was so sweet and scared. She deserved to kill Angel for what he did to her. My poor Cassandra-coded baby

"I don't want to be an evil thing" - he couldn't just kill her, he had to make her into the one thing she never wanted to be

"A devil child like you" "God is watching you" - he puts himself in the role of God and Drusilla in the role of the devil, even though its the opposite, but is it really? She becomes what he makes her, in his image.

The way she knows how to play him for a fool with her visions and Spike never falls for it

Buffy's little "Wah!" and tossing her pencil. It's childish, because she is a fucking child and we cannot forget that.

Willow should've become a teacher tbh

Jenny Calendar is sooooo Can't Catch Me Now coded

Xander pisses me off here. He only cared about what Angel's done when he can use it as an I told you so

Oh, I loved Kendra so much, my poor girl

"It's a big rock. I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big!" Spike ilysm ❤️

"We're about to make history... end" is a baller line though

I don't care for the Angel flashbacks. I don't care enough about Angel to be interested in them. I'll accept it when it involves Darla or Dru or the Kalderash but not just him

Wtf do you mean you fell in love with this girl when she was 15?? That'd be like Spike getting with Dawn

Oh Buffy was just a little girl, who the hell decided to give her the fate of the world?? Even Whistler acknowledges she's just a kid.

"Look at you. She must be prettier than the last Slayer." SHE IS FIFTEEN YOU FUCKING CREEPS

"Someone wasn't worthy!" in a sing song voice I love this little shit

Mr Pointy! I love Kendra, she's also just a little girl. Oh, she should've lived long enough for Buffy to get her that stuffed animal.

The way Kendra dies for a role that was never truly hers

The way Buffy takes Kendra's hand 🥺

2x22: "Becoming, Part 2"

Ah, finally, accurate cops!

Oh fuck you Snyder

"You stupid little troll" - atta girl!! That's my baby

The way she hugs Xander though 🥺

The fact Willow does all this shit in the rest of the episode while badly concussed?? Again, that's my baby

The horror on Buffy's face when she realises Giles is unaccounted for

Angel was always a fucking creep, Whistler, let's be real

Oh, Spike coming in like the world's worst hero!

"I'm talking about your ex, pet. I'm talking about putting him in the bloody ground" - and that's why I love him

I love that Spike wears nail polish

The way he just wants his girl back 🥺

"I hate you." "And I'm all you've got." Another baller line

How it's Xander saying "You're my best friend, I love you" that brings Willow back from her coma, and it's the same thing that will eventually bring her back to herself after she goes dark

Oz and Willow are so cute

Something about how Angel always called him Giles but Angelus calls him Rupert, and the only other person who ever did that was Jenny

Spike and Joyce sitting there awkwardly 😂 "You hit me with an axe one time"

"You'll never hear from us again. I bloody well hope."

To be entirely fair to Joyce, she obvious regrets what she says to Buffy the second the words leave her mouth

"You must perform the ritual in a tutu. Pillock" - That's my fucking man.

Do we think Spike figures out what would break Giles because he knows what would break him?

Oh, seriously fuck Snyder. And fuck the Mayor too.

The fucking sad music here?? "I thought I'd lost you"?? Excuse me, I'm crying!

This is very "Suffering" from Epic the Musical coded

And Buffy right now is very "Nothing Left to Lose" by The Pretty Reckless coded

When she fucking catches the sword!!! That's my fucking girl!

Spike getting the hell outta dodge with his girl. Quite bloody right.

As much as I aggressively do not give a shit about Angel at times, this ending always makes me upset. Just the way Buffy's face goes from horror to realisation to resignation as she understands what she has to do, and she holds it together until it's over and then she breaks

The way they all just get dressed and go to school because what else are they supposed to do?

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BEST OF BTVS: The Scoobies — Season Two

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You guys don’t understand the level of dopamine Buffy gives me because literally every single female character in this show is incredible. They’re all amazing, I want them all to be my friends, I want them all to be my moms it’s insane how it rewires my brain chemistry. Like, even the more minor female characters give me dopamine. It’s fascinating.

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dawn summers is also a contender for character of all time. she's an eldritch horror stuffed into the body of a teenage girl. she's six months old. she's older than time. she's fourteen. she talks shit to the faces of the forces of darkness. she speaks sumerian. she killed her first kiss with a pencil. her best friend is a punk vampire that simps over her big sister. she writes about the horrors in her diary. she has done necromancy. she's a kleptomaniac. her favorite sandwich is salami with peanut butter. she was willing to sacrifice her life to save the world at fourteen years old. she became her sister's watcher when the original watcher abandoned them. she's extraordinary.

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I want to preface this by saying that I agree with you 100%. I am no Angel fan and I'm fully on the "can we just kill him and be done with it?" team. However, that being said, I rewatched that episode tonight and I feel like it makes more sense to me now?? Like, I can at least understand where everyone's coming from.

So, Xander is the one advocating that they kill Angel, Cordelia backs him up, Willow and Giles oppose it, and Buffy is undecided.

Buffy being undecided makes sense, she's torn between duty and love and guilt like she has been this whole time; she's decided she can kill him, but she still doesn't want to. Xander's response also makes sense, because he's always hated Angel.

But when Xander's entire argument hinges on Jenny's death and Angel deserving to die for it, it feels backwards that Willow (whose response to Jenny's death was to break down sobbing repeating "no, no, no, no") and Giles (who went into a homicidal-bordering-on-suicidal grief-fuelled rage) are the ones who oppose it.

But I don't think either Giles or Willow is actually thinking about Angel here at all, he's completely secondary to Jenny.

Giles says: "Curing Angel seems to have been Jenny's last wish."

And Xander replies: "Yeah? Well, Jenny's dead."

And that's when Giles gets angry with him, that's when Willow starts shooting him dirty looks. Because it comes across as Xander saying "she's dead so it doesn't matter what she wanted" but, as far as Giles is concerned, that's all that matters, because it's the only thing left he can do for her. He couldn't save her, but he can damn well finish what she started. And Willow's kind of in the same boat, she's been teaching Jenny's classes, learning magic from the stuff Jenny left behind, so maybe she feels like its her responsibility to take over this too.

Unlike Xander, their hatred of Angel is still secondary to the love and respect they still have for Jenny. So they won't save him for his own sake, because they all know he doesn't deserve it, but they'll save him for her, because maybe the very least she deserves is to have her goals realised.

I'm rewatching btvs and in becoming pt.1 (s2) I am always shocked when xander and cordelia are the ONLY ONES that advocate for killing angel instead of restoring his soul like???? bro literally tortured drusilla into insanity until finally turning her into a vampire AFTER she becomes a NUN to try and heal/live with the psychological torture he inflicted on her, murders jenny calender to PREVENT HER from restoring his soul and then displays her body surrounded by roses and candles in giles' BED, countless other shit we both know and don't know about???? (not to mention tortures giles and is directly responsible for willow's coma, xander's broken arm, kendra's DEATH etc but that takes place after this argument) and because of.....what? he and buffy's history? because he's a "good" vampire? the fact that he helped the scooby gang a couple of times? was broody and remorseful when he did have a soul? girl please

every time I watch it I'm like they canNOT be so seriously adamant about restoring this demon's soul just so he can be even more mopey about the evil shit he did while soulless again OH and he and buffy will be celibate and live in the dark forever cool cool cool

lord pls take me to season 3 so I can at least have my girl faith in the mix

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So I'm rewatching Becoming Part 2, and it's Spike's idea to get Drusilla to hypnotise Giles, and he doesn't seem at all surprised by how it all plays out, that Giles sees her as Jenny. In fact, he looks downright smug, almost like he anticipated it.

Do we think that Spike knows how to get Giles to talk because he knows the only way anyone could get him to talk? Like, Angel wastes hours on violence, but Spike figures out what'll work the minute he puts his mind to it.

Spike, who can take any amount of punches in a fight and keep going but, in Lie to Me, abandoned a fight the minute Dru was in danger.

Spike, who has killed two Slayers in the past century, but has just struck a deal with one to get Dru back.

Spike, who stood there and watched as Giles tried to kill Angel for what he did to Jenny.

Of course Spike was the one to figure it out. Because after all, why does a man do what he mustn't? For her.

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Buffyverse Book Review: The Willow Files by Yvonne Navarro

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Summary:

It's Willow's world and we're all just living in it. So this consists of novelisations of three episodes from across seasons 1, 2 and 3 which are particularly interesting in terms of Willow's characterisation. We've got "I, Robot, You, Jane", "Phases" and "Dead Man's Party", and this is interesting because the novelisations include deleted scenes and extended versions of scenes that were in the script but didn't make it into the final cut of the episode. It also includes excerpts from Willow's diary entries as she tries to process everything going on in her life.

Spoiler-Free Review:

I enjoyed this! I will add the disclaimer that this is obviously not the book for you if you don't like either Willow as a character or any of the episodes in it, but I love all of the above so I thought it was great. The thing I love about novelisations in general is the way they give you a closer look into characters' internal thoughts and feelings that goes beyond what can be conveyed on a screen. And I thought Willow's digital diary was a nice touch, it really drives home the fact that she's still just a kid trying to figure out growing up when growing up has been intertwined with a whole bunch of supernatural insanity.

I'm including excerpts and comments on each individual story under the cut because otherwise this is going to be a very long post!

Diary Entry #1:

"I don't tell anyone, but I spend a lot of time thinking about Jesse and... well... wondering how afraid he was when the vampires took him underground."

I love this, the show fully just forgot that Willow and Xander had a whole best friend who fucking died and I'm glad at least one piece of Buffyverse media isn't brushing over that

I also love Willow expressing how out of place she feels because she doesn't have a boyfriend, how she thinks of it as a problem that needs to be solved. I don't believe her sexuality was handled particularly well on the show, but this bit is definitely giving comphet baby gay who wants a boyfriend because that's what she thinks she should have

"I, Robot, You, Jane":

Another disclaimer: I love this episode, I don't care what anyone says

I love how evocative and unsettling some of the descriptions in this are, like Moloch placing his hand on his follower's head to snap his neck "as gently as a mother stroking her child"

The explicit confirmation of the unapologetic glee Jenny takes in winding Giles up, and how funny Willow finds it:

"[Ms Calendar] strode in and Willow had to hide her smile at the flustered set to Giles' jaw" and "Ms Calendar did an admirable job of holding her expression, although Willow could tell she really wanted to chuckle."

Suffice to say, Jenny Calendar is as much of an icon on paper as onscreen

Also, this makes me think Fritz was a psychopath even before the demon got in his head

Extended scene: when Buffy talks to Dave, she notices that his hands are bleeding and raw from how much he's been typing

Extended scene: when Jenny sees the book with Moloch on the cover, she asks, half-joking, if Giles happens to collect heavy metal album covers too, and he absently replies "Yes".

Extended scene: Buffy figures out Dave is also involved because Moloch on the computer screen tells her the same thing as Dave did initially, word for word

Jenny is described as "excited" at the prospect of a demon, until Giles says it's Moloch and then she's like oh...

Extended scene: Jenny is initially concerned if they have the right materials/preparation for a binding ritual, Giles says:

"'There's no time. Moloch seems to have fixated on Willow. We need to get him out now.' 'Okay,' [Jenny] said, then repeated it, as though trying to reassure herself. 'Okay. Minor panic, but I'm dealing.'"

^ that's gonna become my new motto

Extended scene: Willow at CRD, asks Moloch what he's doing and he replies "What comes naturally."

Diary Entry #2:

The main interesting thing here is Willow musing that, in some form or another, most sentient creatures (both good and evil) all want the same thing: connection.

"Phases"

Willow and Cordelia snipping at each other then teaming up to hit Xander in that self-defence gym class after he pisses them both off

I like how the novelisation doesn't try to minimise how creepy both Larry and Gib Cain actually are

Oh, God, Theresa's internal monologue when she meets Angel:

"Buffy Summers had this way about her, an odd ability to stop bad things from happening, even if no one ever talked about it. If this guy knew her, he had to be okay and she would be safe with him. Theresa was certain of it.

The fact that Angel killed her partly because he thought a werewolf could be a problem for him and he wanted to motivate Buffy to kill it for him?? Hate this motherfucker sometimes

Diary Entry #3

Okay, so this one is from between seasons 2 and 3, while Buffy's gone

Willow notes that "Giles doesn't seem like the same person" anymore and just wants Buffy to come back so maybe he "could at least start trying to heal"

How Willow feels underwater with the whole situation now that Buffy's gone and she just wants everything to go back to the way it was

"Dead Man's Party"

How Willow desperately wants to be understanding and empathetic towards Buffy but she can't manage it because she's still so hurt herself and struggling to process that

How Willow is the only one to notice how not okay Giles still is:

"When Buffy had first disappeared, Willow had seen Giles kind of... turn in on himself. He'd never told Willow about what had happened, but she knew he'd gone to see Mrs. Summers. Afterward, he was much worse - more quiet and sad, and Willow thought it was a good bet that Mrs. Summers had blamed him for Buffy's leaving. With that on top of Angel killing Ms. Calendar, then leaving the body for Giles to find, she knew he had to be carrying a world of hurt."

^ Jesus. Really drives home the fact that Giles went through pretty much all of the worst things a human being can experience consecutively, and stayed alive through it all basically for Buffy's sake only for her to disappear and he's left being treated as if that's his fault. Someone please get this man a therapist

How badly Buffy just wants to make everything okay but she doesn't know how, her struggle between knowing that she did what was necessary for her own wellbeing but that it was detrimental to others

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Faith. Her name alone invokes awe. ‘Faith.’ A set of principles or beliefs upon which you’re willing to devote your life. The Dark Slayer. A lethal combination of beauty, power, and death.

Eliza Dushku as Faith Lehane in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

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Also the fact that it's literally history repeating itself?? Like, she dies I think exactly a hundred years after the girl in Borsa whose only narrative purpose was to be killed so Angel could then be cursed with a soul (and we never actually learn her name as well, talk about a footnote!)

It's like, great, the wheel turns and another woman dies to facilitate this man's tortured soul bullshit. Thanks, I hate it!

also jenny deserves SO MUCH BETTER than to be a footnote in angel's story of him being plagued by regrets like i'm sorry YOU feel bad for murdering her like why are we making that about him now????

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Something about how Buffy is obviously Giles' favourite and Willow is so clearly Ms Calendar's favourite but Xander is just consistently no adult's favourite

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the tragedy of buffy to me in early seasons is that she’s convinced she’s not a normal girl dealing with normal girl things even though everything that happens to her is an extremely cogent metaphor for normal girl things, such as when you’re filled with thoughts of violence, or when your boyfriend starts acting like a different person after you have sex with him, or your mom grounds you for being irresponsible even though you ARE responsible it’s just that nobody understands what you’re going through, or when the entire world conspires to convince you that your sexual desires are inherently evil and you will be punished for having them. many of these things are normal girl experiences under the patriarchy but buffy doesn’t know that bc she’s in the literalization torture labyrinth

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I do love that Vampires are already evil but the worst possible timeline is where they also adopt capitalism.

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do we all agree that jenny has kissed more girls in her life than giles?

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Having a lot of thoughts about the Watchers Council as a microcosm of patriarchy.

Because, like, it's an institution composed largely of older men which is built on the systemic exploitation of the Slayer, who is always a young woman, and they see her as a tool/resource/weapon rather than a person. Just as the patriarchy values women only for what they can do for men, the Council values the Slayer only for how she can serve their goals. She will never be anything more than a cog in their machine, and they don't care about her wellbeing in any way because she is fundamentally replaceable.

But also how most Watchers are led into this way of thinking as young boys and they grow up being told that this is just the way the world works. They're kept in line through an ingrained respect for the structures of power and a judicious use of shame, being told as Wesley was that they'll never live up to the standard set by their fathers.

And how the minute one of them realises how wrong and exploitative the entire thing is and sides with the young woman, that institutional framework turns on him instantly and without mercy - just like Giles abandoning the Cruciamentum for Buffy in Helpless and immediately being removed as her Watcher.

Also though, how the entire institution loses its power the moment the young woman in question realises how dependent it is on her continued exploitation and says "fuck this, I won't do it anymore", as happens when Buffy decides she's no longer taking the Council’s orders.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 2x14 - "Innocence"

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Rewatching The Conjuring movies in the middle of my Buffy rewatch has led to some interesting overlapping thoughts:

I'd love to see Buffy go up against Valak. Mainly because most of the demons in the Buffyverse either have a humanoid form or in some way possess humans, so I think it would be interesting to see how she'd respond to a demonic entity that isn't confined to a physical form and rarely occupies one, therefore she cannot fight it

If Jenny had lived into the later seasons, I can fully see her and Giles ultimately becoming the Buffyverse equivalent of Ed and Lorraine (because as sketchy as the IRL Warrens may have been, their movie counterparts are iconic, and that dynamic of "slightly weird couple who seem perfectly nice but boy do they know an unsettling amount about curses and demons!" is so Giles and Jenny coded)

Willow and Tara versus Isla Kastner! They would be able to fight witchcraft with witchcraft, so it'd end up like a long-distance battle fought via magic, pagan deities and demons. It would be interesting as well in terms of an exploration of magic as tool, not inherently good or evil that depends on how its used, as well as what different forms of magic are capable of

The Scoobies trying to stop Annabelle. Based on The Puppet Show, this would be hilarious

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