Season 3, Ep 18
Added 2022-02-22 17:00:05 +0000 UTCoh boy … i'd never ever ever want to hear thoughts 😳
Comments
Didnt they have to actually make an antidote though? He had to track and kill the demon, get its heart, bring it to the gang, and the gang needed to do whatever they needed to do to make the antidote for buffy to drink?
Holi117
2023-04-23 10:38:54 +0000 UTCTbf about ‘berk’, as an english person, most of us wouldnt ever use that to mean what the rhyming slang means. Plus, berkshire would be pronounced like “bark-sheer”. To call somebody a berk, usually just means you are calling them an idiot lol. If you wanted to swear at them you’d swear at them lol. Or use a different less-offensive term. Berk is just a blah thing to call somebody haha
Holi117
2023-04-23 10:36:10 +0000 UTCDuring the classroom scene when buffy is reading thoughts for answers, you noticed how the teacher talked about everyone having internal insecurities, how the characters in othello were quick to believe the orher was unfaithful etc (you said “ah i wondered how this would link in…”) but did you also notice the part about the characters in discussion being a shadow of othello, the darker half, not a “real” person? In Buffy, Kendra represented the rules and regulations of the slayer side of Buffy, how Buffy could have been if she were like most slayers have been (taken from any family they have, no friends or social life), and how that rigidity, only having her slayerness to fall on, ultimately seemed to leave Kendra unprepared. She didnt last very long. Now we have Faith, who is also alone like Kendra was, but she wasnt taken in by a watcher as a young girl. She had a troubled past, an abusive home, so she is alone for entirely different reasons. She is wild, has no structure to her life or slaying, the total opposite of Kendra. She represents the darker side of being the slayer… Buffy’s shadow-self. “Kill me, you become me.” Faith is all that Buffy COULD be without friends, family, school, love, trust. We saw a little of these elements of the two slayers in The Wish episode - the buffy of the wish universe was cold, hard, unmoved by seeing dead bodies in cages at the bronze, not worried about fashion or how she looked (wearing clothes that are comfortable and utilitarian, ideal for slaying but not necessarily nice looking; hair tied back in a braid out of the way.) she was Kendra in that her whole world was being the slayer, and Faith in that she trusted nobody but herself and didnt let anyone in or get close… I love how this season dives into the metaphor and the literal of what can effect people (who by all rights have the same destiny and power). And I love seeing how the “different versions” or elements of charcaters play off one another. Its just such smooth, clever, deep writing when you really think about it.
Holi117
2023-04-23 10:30:33 +0000 UTCI have to say that I never once noticed that problem either! That's kind of hilarious, really. It *was* a great set-up for the standard "opening teaser combat" scene. Pity it happened to be used in the episode with the telepathic demons... Weirdly, the main thing I do remember about watching the opening teaser of this episode the first time around was that it left me feeling vaguely sorry for the demons, as we're never given any indication what they did to deserve being stabbed to death by Buffy. I'd already internalized the idea that vampires in a graveyard = OK to slay no questions asked, but I guess something about those rubber suits somehow triggered my empathy. Very weird. And then the survivor gets hunted down by Angel for his glowy blue heart bits. Poor rubber suit demon guys. Although thinking about it, perhaps that was *precisely* the audience response that the "can't resist a run and stumble" bit was intended to avert in the first place! After all, something that can't resist a run and stumble is pretty unlikely to be among the Elect, if ya know what I mean.
SK Elkins
2022-03-05 03:45:29 +0000 UTCYeah, I think I'll have to go with that. It's just odd that she usually just fights demons and yet THIS is the time they chose for her to come up with a cunning plan
R J Walker (FumblesMcStupid)
2022-02-27 18:50:52 +0000 UTCIt's possible that the demons can't read human minds, only those of their own kind. This would still work for Buffy getting the power - as she only reads the minds of her own kind, too.
David Meadows
2022-02-27 18:44:51 +0000 UTCI never thought (pun!) of that, either! Perhaps the demons were too busy "talking" to each other to "listen" to Buffy?
Jessica Roth
2022-02-27 00:13:20 +0000 UTCI do enjoy this episode but here's a couple of nitpicks... Twice? I know Giles THOUGHT he was 16 but he was physically 40 something. How long did they lie on that cop car smoking cigarettes ffs? ;) I have always had to assume that it was once on the cop car and once later but Joyce wasn't thinking about it QUITE clearly enough for Buffy to get the specifics (thank god!). But more seriously, they should have had the 'can't resist a run and stumble' opening in another episode. These demons are TELEPATHIC! Could that one not read Buffy's mind and see her plan? (I have watched this episode many times and this is the first time I realised this)
R J Walker (FumblesMcStupid)
2022-02-26 22:39:51 +0000 UTCSpeaking of getting a ride from Giles, how does Buffy get back to the school? Even with her superspeed, it's asking a lot to have her run all the way there. (Again, remember the geography. Buffy lives near downtown…we see her walk there in "Dead Man's Party" and "Lovers Walk" and so on. It's Willow and Xander who live near the school.) Plus, shouldn't Giles or Wesley be looking after the Library? Even if students rarely come in there. I know that eight heroes is a lot to keep track of, but it's silly that apparently the Watchers stayed behind to have a hot foursome with Angel and Joyce. (I meant they PLAYED BRIDGE, of course! You pervs! :P ) (Or maybe Joyce had a squash court installed in the basement, and they're having a round-robin doubles tournament? Who's Rupe's favorite teammate, do we think? The man who took his job, the demon who killed his girlfriend, or the woman he boinked on the hood of a police car? Lol.)
Jessica Roth
2022-02-26 22:13:06 +0000 UTCOne final gripe about the timeline: when Angel shows up with the antidote, we've already seen lots of scenes at the school (Willow and Nancy, Xander and Larry, Freddie hiding from Oz) and it's almost at the noon deadline. Sooo…what kept Angel? We saw him hunting the demon at night…if it takes so long to get through the electrical tunnels, maybe he should have call Giles for a ride? (Angel can ride in the trunk to avoid the sunlight.) [OT Canadian question: do y'all say "boot" as well, or is that just a British thing? And yes, that "y'all" is completely gratuitous…I've only been in South Carolina since 2018, lol.] [While I'm OT, I should squeeze in that the Xander/Larry conversation is the one REAL Xander scene in the script. He thinks about his past experiences, as he did with the Army in "Innocence" or with the Hyena in "Phases", and tries to quietly connect with Larry, even though he felt really awkward with him last time. If only I could be convinced Jane didn't just do it to make a punchline out of Xander's gay panic, ha-ha. I mean, still better than what "Friends" was doing at the time, but…]
Jessica Roth
2022-02-26 22:04:43 +0000 UTCThis episode meant so much to me when I first watched it as a teen. Still one of my top favs of season 3 and even the first 3 seasons. I love when Darcie says the aspect of the demon might take Buffy's mouth and then Buffy says "at least I still got a mouth." This is also probably my favorite Oz episodes of all Oz episodes - everything he say says is somehow both thought-provoking and funny at the same time. According to Wikipedia ( i looked at this awhile and was very surprised) school shooting have been occurring since the mid 1800's with an average of 1 fatality or so until about the mid 1980's. The Colombine High shooting in CO however was the most notable, which occurred the same week this episode was suppose to air in April 1999. I was 11 at the time and remember seeing it on the news. Then of course 2 years later was September 11th 2001 and I experienced my first and only school lock down - kinda crazy to think about, though I knew we weren't in any real danger living in MN.
samantha
2022-02-24 20:09:16 +0000 UTCohhh thats such an interesting point!! i guess i was too traumatized by watching them kiss that i was like OK IT ENDS THERE hahahaha
darciesnothere
2022-02-24 19:52:05 +0000 UTCI NEED TO GO BACK and watch the final fight! i can't believe i didnt really notice that!
darciesnothere
2022-02-24 19:51:28 +0000 UTCOMG i would have never caught that lolol
darciesnothere
2022-02-24 19:50:54 +0000 UTCRegis Kimble does a good job for a first-time director (I like the low-angle shot when we cut to Cordelia cheerleading), but there is one egregious fluff: when Angel is giving Buffy the antidote, David's back is positively BATHED in sunlight. Dude should have gone up like a Roman candle. It's particularly egregious because Jane makes sure to include TWO separate "Angel can't be in the sunlight moments in her script: when Buffy quickly pulls back the blackout curtain at his mansion and when Angel enters with the antidote, smoking. I agree with you that just using the blanket is dubious. I mean, it can't cover everything, and if any part of Angel catches fire (as we saw with Spike in "Lovers Walk"), that blanket is flammable, too. (I suppose that, while Angel couldn't have run all the way from his mansion, he might have gone through those handy "electrical tunnels", popped out at the street corner, and just sprinted up the front walk to Joyce's door. But still.)
Jessica Roth
2022-02-24 19:44:37 +0000 UTCAfter watching reactors watching this episode, I always find it funny how many never knew Joyce and Giles had sex in Band Candy. After watching Band Candy, I figured it was just a fact. I guess I tend to forget how younger people grew up watching shows that had sex scenes in them. Back when I was a kid, there were lots of movies that couldn't show sex scenes, or even blood from bullet wounds. So, to give the audience a cue that the scene was leading towards the characters having sex, they would pan the camera away just as the kissing was getting passionate. If you go back and watch that scene, you can see it do that. Of course, I can't say I wasn't totally surprised, as I hadn't expected them to do it on the cop car. Especially not twice. I tell you, that Ripper is a wild one. Actually, I'm fairly sure of this, but I think the same pan maneuver was used when Angel and Buffy had sex too. The camera panned away and later showed them sleeping in the bed. Just an odd note about how older shows told the audience what was happening because they couldn't show it.
Jordan Haddow
2022-02-24 06:36:59 +0000 UTCThe writing team seemed to really get a kick out of using British slang as a way of slipping things past the censors. I always feel that I detect some childish schoolboy glee bubbling away under the surface whenever someone on the show uses some British insult the North American equivalent of which would surely never have been permitted to go to air.
SK Elkins
2022-02-24 00:30:38 +0000 UTCBack to the script, a key problem is that it's so flaccid and wastes so much time before the plot actually starts. I mean, what's the purpose of that scene where the gang discusses the Mayor (who isn't in the episode) and Faith (also not in the episode, but at least the Buffy/Angel relationship scenes later on are necessary to their personal arc) and the Ascension, where they don't know a thing, and don't make any progress. Utterly useless scene. I used to get on Marti Noxon for writing pointless scenes, but those were just Giles speaking into the phone or a quick exchange of dialogue between two characters. This is six characters sitting around doing nothing for a whole 2:00, which is an eternity in TV time. Angel chasing and killing Jenny, in contrast, takes just 1:39 from "Oh, good. I need to work up an appetite, first." to "I never get tired of doing that." You can see that David Greenwalt (whom we haven't seen since he directed "The Wish") is busy preparing for the spinoff, because he was the guy who made sure the episodes were well-paced. In S1 or S2, Buffy would discover her telepathy at the end of the teaser, and would hear the murder threat at the end of Act 1, and we'd go on from there. This is just too slow to get started. To be fair to Jane, one reason the scene is so content-free is that not only do the characters not know what the Ascension is, JANE didn't know. She reveals on the commentary (which I mostly found insipid; I don't care that you think Wesley looks like Pierce Brosnan) that Joss himself hadn't worked out the finale yet, so the writers were just name-checking and stalling at this point. Lovely. Sigh.
Jessica Roth
2022-02-23 18:07:37 +0000 UTCSpeaking of people not doing their jobs, Jeff Pruitt isn't having his finest day, either. I mean, that's a lovely shot of Sophia Crawford when "Buffy" chins herself to the roof, but normally you're supposed to hide the double a little better than that. (For example, when Buffy breaks through the window to get into the tower, that's also Sophia, but Jeff has her land with her face looking at the floor and in shadow, so it's much harder to see.) And can we talk about that "stunt lady" for the final fight? First, it's a guy. Second, he's short and scrawny (did you lose the number of whomever did the stunts for Daryl Epps? Stick a wig on him and that would be better than this). Most importantly, the stunt guy is way too visible in the fight, when "she" and Buffy exchange punches before Buffy knocks "her" down. You can put it on the editor somewhat (but with Regis Kimble directing, there a substitute in the editing room), but at the end of the day, Jeff's job is to choreograph the fights so this doesn't happen. Don't slack, Jeff. Boo.
Jessica Roth
2022-02-23 17:53:56 +0000 UTCIn checking up on the clothes (see my reply to SK Elkins, above), I noticed that the timeline seems to be screwy, too. Apparently, on the 2nd day (starting at the end of Act I), Buffy goes to English class, then books it over to Angel's, tries to interrogate him, comes back to school, and has a general Scooby meeting in the Library, all before lunch. Really? Especially since Buffy specified (in "Becoming Part 2") that Angel's mansion is outside the city limits. ("That abandoned mansion on Crawford St.., outside the city."). I mean, talk about effective time-management, but… And it's all the same day, since nobody changes any clothes. I'm half convinced that Cynthia just slacked and didn't bother to get another set of outfits, but it's more likely to be a script error.
Jessica Roth
2022-02-23 17:46:15 +0000 UTCI love Giles calling Wesley a berk as well. Lotta people don't know that 'berk' is shortened rhyming slang for berkshire hunt, and hunt rhymes with....:D
Claire Eyles
2022-02-23 14:14:45 +0000 UTCSo as I think someone else has pointed out this episode wasn't aired at its scheduled time due to Columbine. That was 1999, prior to that there was the Stockton schoolyard shooting in 1989, which killed 5 and wounded 23; the University of Iowa shooting in 1991, which killed 4 people an wounded 1, the Lindhurst High School shooting in 1992, which killed 4 people and wounded 9; the Thurston High School shooting in 1998, which killed 4 and wounded 23; and the Westside Middle School shootings in 1998 which called 4 and wounded 10.
Claire Eyles
2022-02-23 14:07:47 +0000 UTC
