Covering
from “Harsh Light of Day” to “Wild at Heart,” in which it’s all about the most
boring playa in existence.
And
so we have the saga of Parker. What a silly thing to have to write. Parker is
only marginally less dull than Scott Hope, in that at least Parker is a
sleaze-ball, though Scott had the decency to arrive and depart in the midst of
all sorts of big events. No such luck with Parker, a story which steals way too
much focus for how blasé its subject is.
Because it’s me, I see the intention
here. Settled into the liberty of college life, Buffy has sex she comes to
regret, a perfectly acceptable story. And it’s actually a fine one when it
begins in “Harsh Light of Day,” which is where the story really begins, the
character (if you can call him that) having been introduced in “Living
Conditions” notwithstanding, and features Buffy as just one of a few ladies
regretting where their emotions have led them. Which is all fine. Great,
actually, enlivened considerably by the return of Anya, the reveal that Harmony
is now a vampire and dating the most patient guy in the world who is who else?
Spike, who engages Buffy is a pretty spectacular brawl at the worst moment,
just when she’s realized the extent of Parker’s games so Spike can give voice
to all the things she’s doubtless thinking. Before that moment, the show works
just as hard to trick us as Parker does to trick Buffy, scoring their
consummation or hook-up to soaring strings provided by proto-Avril Bif Naked.
Hey, remember Bif Naked? You know, from 1999? No? There’s a reason for that.
But like I said, Buffy isn’t the
only one with emotional regrets in “Harsh Light of Day,” the title of which
alludes to Spike’s temporary invulnerability, but also riffs on the colloquial
Walk of Shame, even though logistics keep such a thing from happening under the
harsh daylight here and a more accurate but less punchy term might be “Walk of
Soul-Searching Regret.” Buffy’s misused by Parker, Harmony is abused by Spike
(though it has to be said, she is utter garbage as a hench), and Anya finds her
attempts to purge her feelings for Xander have only made things worse for
herself.
Quick aside, “Harsh Light of Day”
crossed over with Angel’s “In the
Dark,” which sees Spike following Oz in the hopes of reacquiring his
invulnerability gem. And he gets a fantastic speech in the cold open that
played a pretty big role in getting me to watch the show in the first place (“Say
no more! Evil’s afoot! And I’m almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel I like so
much!”). But he seems characterized a bit out of character—basically, Angel implies
Spike is dumb and mocks the idea that he would have a plan, which…actually, it
just makes Angel look rather dumb, because most of what Spike does is plot and
plan and bide his time and work unconventionally (drunkenness notwithstanding).
The whole episode hinges on the fact that not only did Spike figure out a
mythical artifact was real, he also figured out where it was and found it. I
don’t think I’m going to dive into Angel
in parallel, but I probably should hit the crossovers when they’re relevant.
So, anyway, the question arises, is
Buffy punished for getting it on? I don’t think so, she just feels bad and
mopes about getting played (probably the truest sentiment in this story is when
she rags on Parker for being shallow and manipulative, but can’t help but
wonder why he doesn’t like her). No, if anyone is punished here, it’s us, as we’re
subjected to Buffy moping about it for two more episodes.
Of those two, it’s not a
controversial sentiment to say “Fear, Itself” works better, as it gives Buffy’s
moping a fairly sound anchor to something specific—with two lovers in her
leger, both of whom turned evil (one much more literally than the other,
obviously) on her, she fears abandonment—and highlights that with a simple but
fun haunted house story, which ends on a silly, obvious, and yet charming joke
(the incarnation of fear turns out to be quite small, geddit!?). Also, Giles saves the day with a chainsaw, and Anya
dresses as a bunny (a beloved joke, but I much prefer the character in “Newly
human and strangely literal” mode). Little details help a lot.
In fact, while the show obviously
never holds much sympathy for Parker’s perspective, it does at least mirror
Buffy’s situation and give sympathy to the more casual sex perspective in
Xander and Anya’s miscommunicated expectations and assumptions, with Xander
being baffled and confused at Anya being upset that their experience didn’t
mean more to him. His cool is, of course, fueled by her thin insistence she’s
over him and, no doubt, how his assumptions got him assaulted and strangled by
Faith, but there’s some undeniable sympathy for him when he’s chided for not
calling the girl, and he didn’t realize that was expected in this case.
Less good is “Beer Bad.” So much
less good. Another candidate for worst of the series less good.
It sucks. It’s still not my pick,
though.
I know it’s only two episodes, but
Buffy’s continued Parker moping just really strains at this point (and it
should be noted, under the old paradigm, this would have constituted
almost month to viewers). He’s really
just not remarkable enough to justify it—he’s blandly handsome (I’m not sure if
“WB pretty” was a thing back in the day, but today we’d definitely mock him for
being “straight out of the CW’s pretty actor mines”), and disingenuous, and
that’s it. Ain’t like she broke up with Angel again. And while “Fear, Itself” had
the good sense to find something deeper in Buffy’s state, in “Beer Bad,” it’s
just about the boy. So Buffy gets entangled with some cartoon versions of what
passed for college drinkers in 1962 (I was a pretentious college drunk about
this time, and we never brought up fucking Thomas Aquinas), they drink beer
cursed by a cartoon townie (which was apparently a term people still used
unironically? Or Sunnydale has always been a college town, we just never heard
about it, and despite a strong enough industrial district to keep turning out
abandoned warehouses?), and become cartoon cave-people. The episode is
simultaneously very shrill (“You served her beer!?”
Giles says to Xander in a tone better reserved for peyote) and too ridiculous
to work as a condemnation of binge drinking. I mean, Christ, they turn into
cave-people? Especially when you’re going for moralism, it’s best to not
attempt cute metaphors, especially when they’re so silly.
On the plus side, Buffy’s funny
fantasies of Parker begging her forgiveness ring true, and he never shows up
again once Buffy bops him with a club (sigh).
The Parker business is so dominant,
you might forget significant scenes or details, like the girl that Oz trades a
glance with back in “Living Conditions,” or his little bit where he talks fearfully
of the primal power he feels when the wolf begins to take over. It’s hard to
forget that his fear in “Fear, Itself” is an unexpected transformation, but no
one’s fears in that episode are especially surprising or out of left field.
Would time have been better spent expanding these moments? Maybe, but it doesn’t
matter too much, “Wild at Heart” is still pretty crushing, and after way too
much moping over a character we could not give less of a shit about, that’s a
pretty good thing.
I mentioned in “Beauty and the
Beasts” that, rather than the gender essentialist notion of fundamental male
violence that episode tried to force Oz’s lycanthropy to be, it actually played
more like a chronic illness or, perhaps, an addict’s binge. Either way, it was
something Willow desperately wanted to help him through, but couldn’t because,
ultimately, it was something he had to cope with alone. In “Wild at Heart,” it
feels very much like an addict binge, with Veruca seducing him into giving in
to his urges rather than try to stay clean.
As much as Willow may want to help
Oz, there will always be the wolf part of him that she can never touch or
understand, but Veruca can and does. And this is another sad fact of the
transition from high school to college—freed from the constraints of that one
building and exposed to a wider variety of people, couples may find that as
much as they may love each other, they may find themselves drawn to new people
they never had the chance to encounter before, people with whom they share more
commonality. Maybe, just maybe, that first high school love was just a matter
of convenience.
The sadder fact is that Oz’s
affliction makes him at times uncontrollable and dangerous, and he can’t find
the solution to it in Sunnydale, so he has to leave. It sucks seeing Willow so
hurt (she tends to carry her devastation much more nakedly than Buffy). It
sucks seeing Oz so frightened he has to depart. But after so much false sadness
thrown at the feet of the shit version of Scott Hope, it’s nice to see the show
engage legitimate emotion again.
Costuming
Alert! A twofer here, kinda, maybe, and in the same episode. First we have
Spike. “What?” you say. “But Spike’s costuming changes so little! And later he
wears something objectively terrible!” Addressing the second first, that’s the
joke. And the first first, you’re right. But something seems off in the way
Spike’s obvious stunt double wears it. Also making it not mostly black causes
it to fall apart:
And also, we have Buffy. Now, as a straight male, I remember well the days of the extreme backless shirts, and remember them fondly. The bandana tops, those were great. They still look a bit weird, though:
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