…continued from part two. The countdown begins…

05 | Fool For Love (507)

Written by Douglas Petrie, Directed by Nick Marck

I love flashbacks. I can’t get enough of them. In fact, I say the new Buffy spinoff should be purely flashbacks to assorted (demon related) events. Oh come on, it would be cool. Admit it. Ok, so having established flashbacks are the best thing since sliced bread (which really is very cool also), of course an episode that not only shows Spike when he was human, but how he was sired, what his life with his crew of Angelus, Darla and Drusilla was like for a few hundred years, and also how he killed two slayers would make it into my good books. AND all this crossed-over into an intertwining episode of Angel. Very cool.

Some other nifty stuff in this episode: The scoobies tailing after Riley on patrol, noisily munching on chips and musing over the meaning of his covert signals. Angel/Angelus’s inclusion in the ep cannot be looked over as a high point either.

So do I have a focus to these odds tidbits of coolness (and yes I’m aware I’ve overused that word far beyond its limits in the past two paragraphs)? Not really. I can’t put my finger on what makes this one so good. I just love being given the background information that I hunger for to these characters you invest yourself so much in. I like to see their history, know about their past. Not just the bad guys either, I would love to see more LA Buffy or even junior high Willow and Xander. It’s just my greedy and I guess defunct imagination that cant make up backgrounds for these characters on its own and yet wants to know all the details of their lives. Which brings me back to: Flashbacks are cool.

Also worth noting, I cried again in this one — at the end where Buffy throws the money at Spike and leaves him all alone in an alley to wallow in his rejection. Ok, I cry in Disney movies, it’s not that hard to jerk and tear from me but I stand by it as my indication of good TV.

Willow’s assessment of Riley’s covert hand signals:

WILLOW: It’s code. I think it breaks down to ‘choo-choo’.

04 | The Body (516)

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

Buffy comes home to find her mother Joyce motionless and cold on their couch. She calls 911 and Joyce in pronounced dead. The rest of the synopsis should speak for itself — they are all grieving, and show their trauma in different ways. A very nice character episode, and I like it all the more for its artistic genius.

The subject matter of death is dealt with so frequently on Buffy, that one almost tends to forget the death toll of every episode. Yes, usually it is evil monsters dying, but certainly these characters are no strangers to death. When humans die on Buffy, characters react with a bit more regret than when its slimey gooey demons, to be sure, but they are still somewhat incidental occurrences in the world where death is their lives, to create a most tragic of puns.

Yet ‘The Body’ is the one episode of the series which you might say is purely about death. Ok, and maybe ‘Prophecy Girl’. And ‘The Gift’. Oh shut up. My point is, they deal with it in a totally different, and rather beautiful way. There is little (if any?) underscoring through the episode which adds to the feeling of emptiness, and is almost deafening in its volume. If that’s possible…

Choices #4 through to #2 are all Joss/Joss creations, and this is no coincidence. The man in a genius. Or at least, in the realm of the Buffy and Angel universes… universi… whats the plural for universe?… I stray from the matter… Since I started compiling this list weeks before finishing it, I have lessened in my resolve that these five are the cream of the crop (especially after Tom pointed out a few vitals that I missed completely) but I regain confidence from the backing that so many fine Joss/Joss creations made it this far.

TARA: Did I miss something?
ANYA: Xander decided that he blames the wall.

03 | Amends (310)

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

It’s Christmas time in Sunnydale, Angel is being ‘haunted’ by victims of Angelus, Willow and Oz have thoughts of doing the wild thang, and Xander has a go at intimidating info out of Willy the snitch.

This episode is awesome. It contains all the elements I have previously set up as paramount to a top episode. In hindsight, perhaps it should be number one, but just like number one, I have only seen this episode once about 3 years ago when it was on TV and so cant remember it well enough to say that for sure. But on paper, it certainly looks like one of the grooviest.

Lets start with: Flashbacks. Again I will state for you, gentle readers, put very simply, flashbacks are cool. Especially the ones featured in this episode — Ireland in the 1830’s, past victims of Angelus, whose deaths Angel must relive through dreams. He is haunted by his victims in his waking moments also, with the first ever appearance of The First Evil, a key player in the final series of Buffy. We learn the basics about The First Evil all the way back here in Season Three — that he/she/they/it/evil cannot take corporeal form, and that he/she/they/it/evil only appears under the guise of someone who has passed away. Who better to return to torment Angel than… Jenny! Remember my rant when she died? Naturally, her reappearance here for the torture of Angel’s conscience is a golden moment in the series. We also meet the eyeless Bringers for the first time in the episode, whom also play pivotal roles as servants of the First in the final season.

Willow and Oz get back together in this episode, and I challenge any Buffy fan out there to say they didn’t yearn for that. “This is what I do know: I miss you. Like, every second. Almost like I lost an arm, or worse, a torso.” — Oz.

Now the real highlight of this truly marvelous creation by that legend of a bloke Mr. Whedon, is the final scene where Angel is determined to kill himself. Jenny/The First has tried to convince him to kill Buffy, and being tempted by this he decides his only course of action is to stand on a hill out in the open and wait for the sun to rise. Picture this: its Christmas Eve just before dawn. Angel in all his tormented soul glory is waiting to end his life, and his greatest love is tying to convince him not to. Angel sobs. Buffy sobs. Softly snow begins to fall, preventing the sun from shining. And in a great sobbing blubbering mess I hoist both my thumbs in the air before I dash away to get more tissues. Pure Excellence.

THE FIRST: Hmm. You think you can fight me? I’m not a demon, little girl. I am something that you can’t even conceive. The First Evil. Beyond sin, beyond death. I am the thing the darkness fears. You’ll never see me, but I am everywhere. Every being, every thought, every drop of hate….
BUFFY: Alright, I get it. You’re evil. Do we have to chat about it all day? …
THE FIRST: You have no idea what you’re dealing with.
BUFFY: Lemme guess. Is it… evil?

02 | Once More With Feeling (607)

Written and directed by Joss Whedon

Why summarize this episode? We all know the one I’m talking about — they were singing and dancing, its very hard to miss. Ok well if you want some plot reminding… A tap-dancing demon was summoned by Xander who wanted to see if he and Anya would ‘get a happy ending’, but this demon wrongly assumes it was Dawn who called him, as she has stolen his amulet (because she’s the rebellious, attention-seeking teen type) from the Magic Box. So Dawn is taken hostage, but instead of taking her to the underworld to be his Queen immediately, this demon decides to wait around a little while so that she can be rescued. Phew! That’s lucky, cos here comes Buffy with her back-up singers in tow…

Alright well this one had a head start to begin with, in that not only was it about the most anticipated hour of television I ever watched, but I am mad (in the unhealthy, deranged sense) about musicals in general. It would have been easy for this episode merely to be a frivolous addition to the season with no real story nor addition to the overall arc. But not when we are in Joss’ hands. While stunningly entertaining, with humour abounding (‘They Got the Mustard Out’, or Anya’s bunny song), a good dose of pervalicious grunge with Spike’s number, and a reasonable justification for why they were all singing and dancing, Joss still managed to squeeze in necessary overall arc developments — Tara discovering Willow’s memory manipulation spell, and Giles’ resolve to leave Sunnydale.

The direction in this episode is quite mesmerizing. At times, it’s a bit over the top, the camera shifts its focus within a frame so many times that it almost seems like Joss is showing off, but it does also look very effective. The long tracking shot during which Giles is explaining the severity of the circumstances to Xander and Anya, which shifts focus between their conversation and a parking dispute, all the while with dancing janitors making wonderful artistic use of their broomsticks in the background shows the dedication to making this episode great for while it is both a mastery of choreography and timing, it would have taken a lot of resources to get right. It’s also very pleasing to see Joss shooting scenes from different angles. Back in the library, we were always seeing at the gang’s ‘evil of the week’ conversation from the same angle — as though we were standing in front of the entrance to the library. In the Magic Box, these same conversations, that are a must in act one of every Buffy episode, seem far less stagnant owing to the various ways these scenes can be shot. This can be seen throughout the season, but is most obvious during the ‘evil of the week’ talk in this episode, which turns into the group number ‘I’ve Got a Theory’.

The lyrics to the episode are what makes it so great. The wit in “I’ll never tell” and the character insight of “Going through the motions” really are worth both thumbs up on their own, but then there are the little things like: Buffy — “Doesn’t mean a thing”, Vamp — “She ain’t got that swing” that really make me smile.

All you non believers who think this episode is crap (cough MATT cough) I challenge you to come up with as many reasons for its lack of merit. There are none. Well, unless you count that most obvious of plot devices, Giles insisting Buffy face the dancing demon on her own. Or that hideous, totally unbelievable, suck-face kiss at the end between Buffy and Spike. But that lead to a good storyline, you see, so it all works out for the better in the end.

SPIKE: First I’ll kill her, then I’ll save her / No I’ll save her, then I’ll kill her!
WILLOW: I think this line’s mostly filler…

01 | Normal Again (617)

Written by Diego Gutierrez, Directed by Rick Rosenthal

The first thing that needs to be stated is that my opinions of the different episodes of Buffy are never constant, as such. Since I compiled this list over a month ago (before writing it up properly) I’ve lost some resolve in regards to the merit of the top few, however I shall stick by the mood I was in that fateful day several weeks ago, otherwise my conclusion to this article won’t match my introduction, and my editor will get cranky.

As you can see by this chart showing the distribution between seasons of this top ten rundown, it would appear that someone forgot to tell me how crap the later seasons were. The general arc of this graph shows that my preferences lay in the later seasons, and to my abject horror that the most popular season during this undertaking turned out to be season four during which I whinged the entire time. If I recall, this was also the beginning of the end in terms of the never-ending whinge-machine that became one Buffy Summers. I feel the need to redeem myself before I state my argument for the underrated 617 as the numero uno.

I intend to redeem myself by explaining what I consider to be the only possible explanation for this apparent backward thinking: I do not have the Buffy series on record to revisit these episodes and remind myself of their greatness. The last and only time I saw ‘Amends’, for example, was when it appeared on television four years ago. As a result, I don’t remember it very clearly at all, and was relying on transcripts and episode summaries to remind me of its greatness. ‘Normal Again’ however, I have also only seen the once, but remember quite clearly. This could be for a couple of reasons; either attribute this to the fact that it aired only last year and so is fresh in the memory banks, or take into consideration that this episode had an effect on me that I cant recall any other episode every having. When it ended, with its possible and plausible, open-ended conclusion, that the Buffy universe in all its fantastical facets could be the delusioned escape of a mentally unstable youth, I was left with a lot to ponder. And ponder I did. I think I sat on my couch for about an hour, by myself, in the dark (ok, stop giving me that look) just thinking and going ‘Huh. Well… huh’. I’ve cried at the ends of episodes, I’ve wanted to hit the screen in frustration, I’ve cowered in the corner with a pillow half over my eyes, but I count that as my best reaction of all. It got the cogs of this old brain working. A mighty feat. Not that I don’t ponder the mysteries of the Buffy universe every now and again, but usually in conversation or heated argument over some dispute of mysticism and mythology.

I loved the concept of this episode. I’m not saying by any means that I feel the fantastical nature of the show needs to be explained at all in terms of its relationship to reality. I’m a huge sci-fi and fantasy fan of all mediums, and my imagination is quite capable of accepting the unrealistic scenarios of fantasy as ‘other’ to what is ‘real’. This is perhaps the reason the idea of explaining Buffy‘s relationship to reality appealed to me — I had never seen the need, and so the concept had never so much as occurred to me. I’d (yes, like the geek I am) considered a lot of things about Buffy from lots of angles, but never that.

I suppose its wrong of me to base sigh a high ranking on that one thing — initial reaction, as opposed to it possessing all the elements of an episode that I love (ie. flashbacks, good fight scenes, character developments, really great humour), but as I’ve only seen many of the episodes once, initial reaction is the best thing I have to go on. See my above argument with the pretty demonstrative graph for reiteration of this. If you are going to come at me with an axe, then just tell yourself that ‘Once More with Feeling’ was the top cheddar. No wait, that won’t help.. Ok all the homicidals can see ‘Amends’ as the one with the best of the goods. No doubt Tom will be forcing me to sit down and watch this episode again next week and I’ll be clamouring back to this article to nock everything else up a notch and it off the charts, but for today, this is my pick.

Just a quick synopsis reminder for those who thought ‘Normal Again’ was ordinary enough not to bother with a second glance: The Evil Trio (Jonathan, Warren and Andrew) have a venomous demon sting Buffy, which incurs hallucinations that she is in fact in a mental asylum, back in LA, told by her mother, father and doctor that Sunnydale with its monsters, demons, watchers, Snyders, witches, giant-lizard-mayors, and slayers is the result of a chronic case of schizophrenic psychosis that Buffy is suffering from, and all a false illusion. To get well and escape this delusion Buffy must cut the ties she has created for herself to this unreal world, by killing Willow, Xander, Dawn (and one assumes, Spike, Giles and Tara too). Though she tries to, in the end Buffy chooses the ‘delusion’ and does not kill her chums. The episode closes with a scene in the asylum with a doctor looking into a non-responsive Buffy and pronouncing “We’ve lost her.”

BUFFY: I was, uh, checking houses on that list you gave me, and looking for Warren and his pals … and then, bam! Some kind of gross, waxy demon-thing poked me.
XANDER: And when you say poke…
BUFFY: In the arm.

And that’s it, gentle readers. I hope enjoyed this production of Shannon’s General Thoughts and Musings, as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Have a nice day.

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