…continued from part one. The countdown begins…

10 | Him (706)

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg, Directed by Michael Gershman

Dawn, Buffy, Anya and even Willow fall head over heels in love with a jock from Dawn’s school. The gals battle it out to prove who’s love is strongest, and it is left to Xander and Spike to foil the master plan.

One of the things I liked about this one was that unlike the rest of season seven, this episode was a stand alone, like in the good ol’ seasons. Most of season seven follows an arc of storyline with no individual closure to each episode. Some people like this, I just happen not to. I like to know that in 42 minutes the problem will be solved, unless it happens to be an extra big bad where it can sometimes take two episodes at most. The beauty of ‘Him’ is that you needn’t have seen any of the precursory episodes to find it just as amusing as the rest of our friendly cult do.

The underscoring. The keenly attuned snatch and grab plan of Spike and Xander. The rocket launcher. It all made me chortle.

WILLOW: Damn love spell. I have tried every anti-love spell spell I could find.
ANYA: Even if you find the right one, the guy would probably just do an anti-anti-love spell spell… spell.

09 | Band Candy (306)

Written by Jane Espenson, Directed by Michael Lange

Snyder recruits the high school students of Sunnydale to sell candy bars to raise funds for the marching band. However, Ethan Rayne, the ghost of Giles’ darker days, puts a spell on the candy which has all the adults of Sunnydale acting like high school students.

Part of the reason I like the episode so much is that Anthony Stewart Head gets something interesting to do. Giles has a lot of potential for humour, and the opportunity isn’t given to him as often as I would love to see. In this episode, Head, like Kristine Sutherland who plays Joyce, gets to play with the character and the result is of course highly amusing. This is the one time we actually see ‘Ripper’ on screen. The scene where he tells Buffy to beat up Ethan for info ranks a mention, but its little things in this episode that really got me, for now the only example I can come up with being the mailman reading everyone’s mail. So cute.

BUFFY: Something’s weird.
OZ: Something’s not?

08 | Passion (217)

Written by Ty King, Directed by Michael E. Gershman

Angel has become Angelus, and devotes his evil, evil ways to freaking out Buffy and the people she loves. He draws some very pretty drawings of Buffy and Joyce asleep, and leaves Willow some dead fish. All this is irrelevant however; the main plot point you need to know is that he kills Jenny Calendar in this episode. Oh, and the slayerettes have to study for their S.A.T.’s.

Reading various interviews of Joss Whedon over time, has led me to believe that he likes to kill off his characters. By that I mean, he likes to let his audience fall in love with a character, and then shock viewers by disposing of said characters — and this works so effectively because we as an audience aren’t accustomed to tv shows doing this. An example is Jesse in the pilot of the Buffy series. According to Tom (my most reliable bibliographical research source — though he’s editing this so he’ll probably change what I said), Joss wanted to put Eric Balfour (Jesse) in the opening titles sequence so that when he was vampified and consequently staked later in the two-part opener to BtVS, we were left scratching our heads and perhaps mending our broken hearts. He certainly did this to us in Season One Angel.. Doyle.. sniffle..

Ok, so what’s my point? Jenny Calendar. Not only did he allow us to get to love her, he allowed Giles to get to love her. Giles, whom I love. So ‘Passion’ rates a mention for a couple of reasons:

1. The shock — chasing her around the school, I was sure Angelus wasn’t going to catch her, because hey, the goody always wins, right?
2. The tears. Oh yes, there were tears when Giles cracked that lovely smile in his ignorance of Angelus’ brutal illusion.
3. The beautiful, if dark, voiceover from Angelus through the episode.

ANGELUS: Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping… waiting… And though unwanted, unbidden it will stir… open its jaws, and howl. Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love? the clarity of hatred… and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank… Without passion, we’d be truly dead.

Another quote worth mentioning…

XANDER: I’m sorry, but let’s not forget that I hated Angel long before you guys jumped on the bandwagon. So I think I deserve a little something for not saying ‘I told you so’ long before now. And if Giles wants to go after the, uh, fiend that murdered his girlfriend, I say, ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’

07 | Hush (410)

Written and directed by Joss Whedon

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

WILLOW (about Buffy and Riley’s relationship): Well, get with it. I need my vicarious smoochies!
BUFFY: I don’t know. I get nervous and I start babbling, and he starts babbling, and it’s a babblefest!

06 | Tabula Rasa (608)

Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner, Directed by David Grossman

Willow casts another ‘forget’ spell which goes awry and the troops all awake in the Magic Box not knowing who they, or each other are, or why there are what seem to be real live vampires beating down the door. Giles assumes he is engaged to Anya, and that due to his accent, Spike (who is dressed in tweed and thinks his name is Randy) is his son. Willow thinks Xander is her boyfriend, and Buffy (Joan) somehow figures out Dawn is her sister. When their memories return, Tara leaves Willow and Giles goes back to pommyville. I guess they didn’t see the humour in the situation as much as I did.

This episode is so much fun to watch, and at the same time its one of the saddest episodes too. Now I wasn’t a huge fan of Tara (or of Amber Benson more accurately — learn to act, girl!!) but I was sad to see her leave our Willow. And Giles, well.. sniffles.. don’t get me started. However even the sentimental farewells of these characters (temporary as their absences were) only succeeded in adding to the overall dynamite-ness of this one. Some of the best bits: Giles and Randy — that hug, Giles and Anya — what a hoot, Xander and Willow — cos deep down I always wanted to see them together, and Joan and Randy — ‘lame vampire-with-a-soul’ joke.

Double points for the use of an Avril song! I didn’t know who Avril Lavigne was when I saw this ep, but I had to go find out because I fell in love with the song ‘Goodbye to You’, which worked so very well in this episode. Unlike Andy, I didn’t mind the Joan/Randy story progression; I think it creates more interest/tension/vicarious smoochies. And anything that puts Spike in the central storyline is Ok by me! My only picky point is that I wish that shark-guy moved his lips a bit when he spoke. It was like ventriloquism without the dummy.

GILES: We’ll get our memory back and it’ll all be right as rain.
SPIKE: Oh, listen to Mary Poppins. He’s got his crust all stiff and upper with that nancy-boy accent. You Englishmen are always so… Bloody hell. Sodding, blimey, shagging, knickers, bullocks. Oh, god. I’m English.
GILES: Welcome to the nancy-tribe.

…continued in part three. The conclusion…

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Shannon Jones on Sunday, March 16th, 2003. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.