Covering
from “Killed by Death” to “Go Fish,” in which we have to be patient, but we are
given a great model.
There
are advantages to BtVS not
cannonballing into the deep end of the serialization pool, but one big problem
with its approach is the inconsistent ebb and flow. At times, it can feel like
there is a lack of urgency, as it can seem like the heroes being a little lax
while they wait for the villain’s next play and kill time before the finale.
Angelus doesn’t actually suffer from this issue as much as others will—his big
plan, after all, is to torment Buffy because he thinks it’s funny—but some
later seasons would buckle under contriving reasons Buffy can’t just tool up
and put an end to the apocalyptic plans before there are actual holes in the
sky. He’s not immune, though, “Passion” is great enough I didn’t want to sully
it, but it does seem a little absurd that no one thought to uninvited Angelus
from their homes until then. Coming off the high of “Passion” really highlights
this issue, as before the season’s climax we get an episode that sucks, one
that’s trivial, and a real classic in between.
As contrivances to hold off the
inevitable final showdown between Buffy and Angelus go, the fact that he, Dru,
and seemingly crippled Spike are hiding out is pretty good. Because Buffy gets
sick, less so, which makes the episode immediately following “Passion,” one “Killed
by Death,” a real bummer. Look, I’m very aware that the flu isn’t a trivial as
we like to think in the modern day, but here we have Buffy being carted about
in a wheelchair, wrapped in a goddamn quilt like she’s dying of consumption in
1815? Come on. While the demon is pretty cool and the idea undergirding him
pretty good, but this is all way too contrived and hacky. After weeks of
careful characterization, it sucks to see Buffy suddenly given a highly
specific quirk (Fear of Hospitals), traceable back to one solitary event—the reveal
that this was actually an encounter with the demon doesn’t really redeem it.
Third is “Go Fish.” This episode is slight
and probably not very good, but I still rather enjoy its loopiness. It’s
another take on “The Pack,” but with some school sports culture and a healthy
serving of the Lovecraft classic “The Shadow over Innsmouth” mixed in this
time. School sports culture is a pretty large concept, and while there’s some
business with performance enhancers and adult enablers and what we have come to
think of as rape culture, the attitude towards the team is largely the
ungenerous perspective of the embittered teenage nerd—as one once, I should
know. Great as the show can be with the individual teenage experience, it isn’t
always great with culture. Still, it’s got fishmen, Xander’s inept undercover
mission (“Steroids! Where are they?!), Wentworth Miller dropping “Bro!” a lot, and
the swim coach beginning his villainous speech with “After the fall of the
Soviet Union…” so they’re fishmen that are the product of Soviet super-science.
Oh, and Buffy’s rocking Jack Purcells, the extra
cool Converse. There’s an inane threat of sexual violence at the end, but at
least it turns out to be equal-opportunity for a change.
Angelus appears in both, not being
killed and having a fairly unconvincing scene with Xander in the former, and
trying to feed of a unwitting fishman in the latter, but neither is very
substantial. Tellingly, he and his relationship with Buffy are major presences
in the strongest episode of this particular batch.
“I Only Have Eyes for You” is
credited to Marti Noxon, who will eventually become a very important figure in
the show’s meta-lore for reasons I will have plenty of time to get into later.
For now, I think it suffices to say that, given her later output, she may be
responsible for the show having concerns with feminism and gender issues deeper
than the basic idea of girl fights monsters. I have no special insight on this,
just a suspicion. But this is the first episode I’ve noted she’s written, and
it turns out to be the first one that’s genuinely challenging.
In addition to being challenging,
the ep also has a creepy ghost story, romantic anguish, a tragedy, and moves
the Angelus story ahead on several fronts while containing a few needed character
beats and quality small details. It has a lovely little story for Giles and
Willow as they continue to deal with the loss of Jenny. Even the montage of the
exorcism is well-observed and revealing, as Cordelia is extra emphatic once the
malign spirits touch her (“I shall totally
confront and expel all evil!” is a solid laugh line) while Xander shows
some rare studiousness and seriousness during the incantation. Meanwhile,
Angelus starts really antagonizing Spike by putting the moves on Dru, until at
the end Spike reveals (again, for our sake) he’s not crippled at all, and has
his own intentions.
At the center, though, is James and
Grace, the spirits whose doomed love traps them so they trap others in acting
out their doomed fate—the highly gendered act of violence that is the
murder-suicide—forcing anyone handy into playing out their deaths over and over
with no change until, ironically, Grace grabs hold of someone who is already
dead. Buffy nurses a very specific rage for James and declares him unworthy of
sympathy (not without cause, he is a murderer, after all), despite Giles’ sage
counsel that we don’t forgive people because they deserve it. And when Buffy
gets seized into the spirits drama, everyone assumes that there is no one to
play James’ role, no, it turns out Buffy is to be James, with Angelus playing
Grace, affording both the opportunity to achieve the understanding and grace
(she isn’t subtly named) James’ rashness denied them both.
After the ordeal, Buffy tells Giles
that James clearly empathized with her (“I guess”), but she doesn’t mention
they ways she empathized with James. They are there, though, even before she is
possessed, she spits some good bile about how James “destroyed the one person
he loved most in a moment of blind passion,” which, man, sure sounds like how
she probably feels about her plight. Even Cordelia notes that Buffy is
over-identifying, turning her rage against herself outward. And both she and
James want the same thing—forgiveness from the one they wronged, no matter how
unintentional the wrong was. James gets his wish, and Buffy gets a simulacrum
(while Angelus, perhaps reminded of what he used to be, flees immediately and
tries to scrub the “love” away), but even then, Buffy cannot fathom how Grace
could forgive James, nor, presumably, how Angel could forgive her.
It’s incredibly fraught, full of
implication and significance worthy of study far more deep and critical than
what I’m attempting here. Like I said, it’s very challenging. What is the
significance of Buffy and James identifying with each other, and what are the
implications of this switched role in expressly gendered violence? This doesn’t
feel like the off-handed and rather ill-advised statement that the fishmen need
to get it on, there is an obvious intention here in the endless cycle of man
James killing woman Grace, with other slotted into their roles. And it may be
as simple as that—energy is best spent breaking the cycle.
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