I lost a friend tonight, and I may lose more. The whole earth may be sucked into hell, and you want my help ‘cause your girlfriend’s a big ho? Well let me take this opportunity to not care.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | S2E22: Becoming, Part II
Tara: “I think it’s strange. I mean, I think I should worry that we haven’t found her name.”
Willow: “Who, Miss Kitty?”
*shot of their kitten, playing with a ball of red yarn in slow-motion*
Tara: “You’d think she’d let us know her name by now.”
Willow: “She will.
*looking down at Tara*
She’s not all grown yet.”
Tara: “You’re not worried?”
Willow: “I never worry here. I’m safe here.”
Tara: “You don’t know everything about me.”
Willow: “Have you told me your real name?”
Tara: “Oh, you know that.
*Willow smiles, reaches for something. Shot of a paintbrush dipping into ink jars*
They will find out, you know. About you.”
Willow: “Don’t have time to think about that. You know I have all this homework to finish.”
*the camera pulls back so we can see Tara is lying face-down on her bed, naked, and Willow is painting on her back*
Tara: “Are you gonna finish in time for class?”
Willow: “I can be late.”
Tara: “But you’ve never taken drama before.
*shot of Willow dipping the paintbrush again, moving it across to Tara’s back, which is covered with Greek symbols*
Might miss something important.”
Willow: “I don’t wanna leave here.”
*Tara twists back to look at her*
Tara: “Why not?”
*Willow stands up, looking down at Tara. She turns away toward a dark red curtain. Walks over to it*
Willow: “It’s so bright.
*pulls back the curtain to reveal a brightly sunlit desert. The light falls on Tara, who looks over. Looking back at Tara, still holding the curtain open*
And there’s something out there.”
*shot of the desert, straggly plants, rocks. We briefly see something (someone?) moving, then it’s gone. Shot of the kitten stalking forward toward the camera, in slow-motion*
I have been so anxious to get to this episode and write my meta. For all the time I’ve brought up Willow’s insecurities, this is the one and only episode that lays them all bare for everybody to see, if - and this is important -, you are clever enough to decipher the code of visual symbolism and possess the ability of interpretation. Pretty much all of the episode ‘Restless’ requires you to interpret what you see. You’re not told straight-forwardly what the dreams, each of the core 4 Scooby members have, are about and that’s precisely what I love about it and why it is probably my most favourite episode of the whole show.
Now, obviously, I’m only going to be talking about Willow’s dream in the episode because if I were to do an analysis of every character’s dream, I’d be here all day and this recap would be incredibly long. I would suggest watching YouTuber Passion Of The Nerd’s analysis for it to get the whole picture. Much of what I will write here will draw from that as I agree with quite a lot of it and think it makes a lot of sense in understanding each character. Every character has fears, worries and insecurities, and that’s what these dreams are specifically about, but Willow’s go much deeper than can be witnessed in all of the show due to her “hiding” them under a “thinly-veiled” persona of who she wants to be. For the most part, you only get to see who she wants you to see. It is not until this episode that all of Willow’s real thoughts and feelings take center-stage - quite literally. There’s a reason why both her dreams in ‘Nightmares’ and ‘Restless’ have her performing on stage. The former, being more about stage fright and about wanting to go unnoticed. The latter, about acting like something she’s not and “putting on a show” of confidence and security to the other characters, who she fears knows about “the real her”, and the audience watching her. Now, “the real her” is as ambiguous as this entire dream sequence is - meaning: it depends on your point of view who Willow is. And this is why I clash with @confusedguytoo about Willow often regarding my views and opinions on Willow. They see something different to me. However, I’ll let them better explain that if they so wish to. I’ll only explain what I see - in Willow - and in this episode.
I relate Willow’s insecurities to her accumulation of power and need for control. For me, much of what I interpret in ‘Restless’ ties in and very much foreshadows Willow’s magic addiction and ‘Dark Willow’ storyline in Season 6 because, to me, Dark Willow is less about the Magicks and more about power and rage, (Anya interjects here: “and vengeance, don’t forget vengeance”). So I will go through the meaning of Willow’s dream in ‘Restless’ from the way I interpret it and in my own words:
Starting off, we have Willow sat on Tara’s bed with Tara (well, actually Tara is laying down on it and Willow is sat on it.) Tara is turned away from Willow as Willow paints some writing on her bare back (see Passion Of The Nerd’s analysis to know what is being written because it’s very significant to the scene.) This part of Willow’s dream has more to do with Tara than Willow, but it’s important to remember that it’s all from Willow’s perspective. Willow worries that there’s something about Tara that Tara isn’t telling her. Something she’s not “facing her” with and letting her know bothers her. But other than that - she has no worries. She feels safest with Tara and, as I’ve previously mentioned in another recap, is much more invested in the relationship they share than Tara is at this point in it. And the scales don’t actually equal in that because Willow becomes uncomfortably and unhealthily invested in that she starts to abuse Tara in such a way where she wants to make sure Tara pays the most attention to her. And magic has always been the best way for Willow to have “her will be done” well before Tara entered the picture of her life. And so, she knows it’s her bread and butter to getting her way.
Moving on, we now see Willow walking the halls of Sunnydale high school and Xander and Oz are in the dream. No Tara. Meaning this part of the dream is something passed in her life but still very present in her mind. Although this is of the past, the dialogue between all 3 characters is about Willow’s then-future. There is mention of Tara and of the drama class they will take in college. I interpret this to mean that Willow can’t entirely let go of what was to focus on what is or what will be. Hence why Oz is in the scene and why he says “Oh, I’ve been here forever” when Willow asks him if he’s ever took the drama course - at which point we see Willow trying to take something out of her locker but can’t seem to get it open. I interpret this to mean she’s locked out and cannot access that part of her life anymore despite still thinking about it, and specifically Oz, in it. You see, Oz may have followed Willow to college, but he never stayed. Their relationship was only one that existed in high school and Willow has regretfully moved on from Oz and entered a new relationship that exists in college and will last beyond that. She cannot access her high school life anymore. She cannot access Oz anymore. Thus, their love affair was tied to their high school life and Willow no longer goes there.
At this point we see Willow walk out of the frame, leaving Xander and Oz behind, to stand backstage of a production in their drama class - of which Willow has never even rehearsed for and hasn’t even had her first drama class yet. And the characters of Harmony, Riley and Buffy are dressed up in costume ready to perform the play and tell Willow that she’s late but she’s “already” dressed in “costume” and “already” in “character”. Giles then enters the scene as the stage director and his dialogue in rallying his actors to get ready to perform reveals that this play is all about Willow. In fact - she’s the main character in it (go figure) and everybody in the audience, including the cast, is there to watch her perform.
“Acting is not about behaving, it’s about hiding. The audience wants to find you, strip you naked, and eat you alive, so hide.” - Giles.
Next Willow goes behind the stage curtains (which are red to represent a vagina, apparently, according to Whedon in the commentary track for ‘Restless’) and finds Tara among them with her who tells her that things aren’t going very well. Willow says that drama class is not being done in the “proper” way, she doesn’t know what to do, and the play’s starting soon. Tara then tells her that the play’s already started and that’s not the point anyway. Willow doesn’t understand. As the play happens without Willow, Tara disappears, and what was following Willow attacks her.
Buffy saves her and we go back to Sunnydale high school. This time we’re in a classroom. It isn’t clear which class but it’s presumably English as Willow reads out a book report on ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. Before she does that though, Buffy tells Willow that the play is long over and asks her why she’s still in “costume”. Willow responds that it’s not a costume, she’s just in her outfit of the day. Buffy tells her that everybody already knows about her and to take her “costume” off, to which Willow panics and refuses. Buffy rips her “costume” off of her to reveal her wearing the clothes she was wearing on the very first episode of the show. Now, Willow stands in front of a full classroom of her peers (both from high school, college, and the Scooby Gang) mocking her for her appearance and her reaction to being totally exposed to what she believes everybody perceives of her as the truth of who she really is. Still a shy loser. The dream sequence ends with what was following Willow and attacked her throughout; the first Slayer sucking out her soul and leaving the real Willow paralyzed in her sleeping state. Unable to escape from her personal Hell.
So what does it all mean? Well, it really all depends on the way you interpret her dream. Some things about Willow and what she thinks and feels are clear, some are not. But how I’ve interpreted her dream in ‘Restless’ is that Willow, despite appearing a much more confident, secure and assertive person, doesn’t have any belief in herself when it comes to her value and requirement of her from her peers, friends and lovers… Or everyone that’s not her. Her need for validation in who she is and what she can do from everyone. Her worthiness in her work. Her ability and capacity to love. Her appearance to whoever perceives her. Especially the ones she loves. And her insecurities run so deep in this that even she doesn’t recognize them. She’s not aware to how much she’s acting like someone she’s not in order to please, in order to have attention, in order to feel of use to people. Now, it is not that she is still the loser. She’s definetly evolved into a much more worldly and well-rounded person since her high school days. Stronger, smarter, wiser, and more confident. It’s just she doesn’t believe in it and she absolutely fears no one else does either. In her mind she’s still the lonely nerd and she’s doing the most to make sure people don’t see that. Even though she has the belief that they do and always will. So her need for power and control all stems from these deep unconscious insecurities. Magic just happens to be the most effective tool for her to accumulate this. And she only becomes addicted to it in Season 6 because she relies on it to make her special. Even though she’s special as she is - with or without magic - to which Tara does her damnedest to make her aware of and believe. And she’s about the only person in the show that achieves it - until, of course, her death… Which, of course, triggers Dark Willow.
Willow's need for power and control as Dark Willow is channelled through rage and pain and so no amount of it is enough. Willow isn’t enough without Tara. None of these fears, worries and insecurities are the truth of Willow. But getting her to believe in and trust in that is next to impossible. Tara is only capable of it because she’s the one thing in the show that Willow truly loves. Is truly committed to. Is truly invested in. And she feels like she means and is nothing without her, without her love, without her attention, without her validation, without her light. She abuses her the most because she’s the one person in all of the show that she covets the most. That she doesn’t want to be without, that she feels the safest and is the happiest with. That she won’t let leave her life. Yes, it’s unhealthy. But true love can be when there’s so much inner turmoil. When there’s such a storm inside threatening to be unleashed with every bad day. Every screw up. Every "spaz" feeling. That's what it stems from. A loser mentality.
That is Willow’s entire predicament throughout the whole show and why her character representation, development and evolution is the greatest, the most profound, the most detailed, the most poignant. This is a character that you absolutely fall in love with very early on. To see them go from that gentle-natured, quirky, inspiring and endearing person to one of the most abusive, frustrating, corruptive and destructive people is hard. Fortunately, they’re given the endgame they deserve and become the hero. They learn to balance both sides to who they are - the dark and the light - and they become exactly who they want to be. Someone of great power and control. Someone that is valued and loved. Someone that matters. Whether she believes it or not is up to you. 😉
As a way to round up what has been almost four fucking years of rewatching, recapping and giffing seven seasons and a movie of BTVS and three seasons and a movie of VM and as a celebration of what has probably been my biggest - if not my best - contribution to these fandoms on this Hellmouth of a website, I thought it might be a good idea to share with all of you who’ve shown me your support by reading, liking, commenting, or reblogging any of my posts some of the highlights of the past 4 FUCKING YEARS. In all seriousness, if it hadn’t been for all of you liking, reblogging, or replying to my posts, or sending me messages of support and encouragement, I probably would have quit a long time ago. Like three years ago, give or take. So, before we get to the good stuff, I just wanted to say…
Without further ado…
The Best of MTVS Epic Rewatch*
*totally subjective - based merely on the number of notes of each post and/or my own personal preference.
Recappy Goodness (or Badness, as the case may be)
BTVS TOP 15 RECAPS
4x19 New Moon Rising
4x22 Restless (probably my favorite BTVS recap)
3x22 Graduation Day Part 2
6x07 Once More With Feeling
1x01 Welcome to the Hellmouth
3x12 Helpless
3x15 Consequences
4x16 Who Are You?
5x01 Buffy vs Dracula
5x10 Into the Woods
6x03 After Life
6x08 Tabula Rasa // 6x19 Seeing Red
4x20 The Yoko Factor // 5x22 The Gift
4x07 The Initiative // 5x18 Intervention
3x08 Lovers Walk
VM TOP 10 RECAPS
2x20 Look Who’s Stalking (definitely my favorite VM recap…)
2x07 Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner
1x18 Weapons of Class Destruction
2x22 Not Pictured
Veronica Mars Movie
2x17 Plan B
2x06 Rat Saw God
2x08 Ahoy Mateys! // 2x09 My Mother the Fiend
3x04 Charlie Don’t Surf
1x22 Leave it to Beaver
Gifs Galore
BTVS TOP 15 GIF-SETS
My friends don’t have a rock this big.
#IDGAF
Do you like my mask?
Tell no one.
Class Protector
Just ascend already!
I just wanna feel…
How to ask a girl out
TAKE THAT BACK!
Myth-taken
Every slayer has a death wish.
Kill for him!
Ben is Glory
Be free, kittens!
A little courage
VM TOP 10 GIF-SETS
Look tough.
Daily goals
Well, there’s the Klan
Do I get a phone call?
I will not go to prom with him
That’s mine all right.
I thought our story was epic.
Chicks can’t resist argyle
Rode Hard meet Put Away Wet
Lurking around
Bonus tracks:
Oranges
Angel fangirling
Hidden blooper in OMWF
Pu$$y Burgers
Smashed final scene “uncensored”
Working in Retail
#adulting
VM recaps in chronological order
BTVS recaps in chronological order
BTVS Polls
Season 7 Best Lines - Best Episodes
Season 6 Best Lines - Best Episodes
Season 5 Best Lines - Best Episodes - Worst Episodes
Season 4 Best Lines - Best Episodes - Worst Episodes
Season 3 Best Lines - Best Episodes - Worst Episodes
Season 2 Best Lines - Best Episodes - Worst Episodes
Season 1 Best Lines - Best Episodes
VM Polls
Season 1 Best Lines - Best Episodes - Worst Episodes
Season 2 Best Lines - Best Episodes - Worst Episodes
Season 3 Best Lines - Best Episodes
Finally, if you’ve enjoyed reading my recaps and would like to continue reading my reactions and analysis of other shows, please make sure to click that pesky follow button on my side blog, @mtvswatches
Also, this is absolutely not necessary but will be highly appreciated - check out my ko-fi page!
I Don't Sleep on Bed of Bones: The Slayer as a Killer Across the Seasons
A pretty constant question throughout Buffy's arc - arguably the central question of the entire show, that Buffy must answer, is "what is a slayer? What does being The Vampire Slayer mean?". And a major part of that is the question of whether a slayer is just a killer. It's a question central to S5, but ripples throughout the rest of the show too, with some of the most iconic scenes in the show in converstion with each other around it. Inspired by an ask I received about this from @potterkid, I took a look at how this idea develops and resolves itself over the course of the show.
In S1, being the Slayer means accepting responsibility. It's metaphor for growing up - a metaphor that recurs throughout the show along with other ideas, but is strongest in S1. Buffy is torn between her teenage/human wants and her adult/supernatural responsibilities. She accepts her mortality and her duty (fighting the Master), and wins when she manages to integrate that with her personal desires (fighting the Master in a kickass prom dress with her friends and boyfriend). There's some stuff around the classic superhero idea that being around the hero is dangerous -e.g. in Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, but not much on the idea of a Slayer being a killer exactly.
In S2, being the Slayer means making hard choices. It means accepting that sometimes all your options are bad ones, but choosing one anyway, even at personal cost. This is introduced through Ford's story in Lie to Me, with Buffy's words to him forming one of the core thesis statements of the show ("You have a choice. You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice."), and it's climaxed beautifully in the tragic ending of Becoming. There's not much direct allusion to the idea of Buffy being a killer here, but this is a vital moment in that discussion. Ultimately, Buffy does make the decision here to kill Angel - not to slay Angelus, but to kill him. To take the life of her ensouled lover in order to save others. It's kind of the opposite of the decision that Ford makes - the best of two bad choices. It's the classic trolley problem, and Buffy's hand is on the lever by design - she has to make that choice because she's the Slayer. We will see this moment returned to again and again as this Slayer-vs-Killer theme develops.
Also, Ted is a very important episode for later. Buffy herself feels guilty specifically because she used her slayer powers on what she thinks is a regular human, and therefore killed him. Specifically, being the Slayer made her a Killer. It's also notable that this is where the idea of Buffy having a free reign to kill is first introduced - by Buffy's original shadow self in Cordelia no less.
Cordelia: I don't get it. Buffy's the Slayer. Shouldn't she have... Xander: What, a license to kill?
Cordelia: Well, not for fun. But she's like this superman. Shouldn't there be different rules for her?
- 2x12 Ted
This isn't explored massively here but will be revisited again and again going forward.
S3 is where this theme really comes into focus. Faith enters as Buffy's shadow self and a representation of hedonism. How that manifests is as a Slayer who gives herself a license to Kill. She posits the idea that as slayers, they can and should decide who lives and dies.
Faith: Something made us different. We're warriors. We're built to kill. Buffy: To kill demons! But it does not mean that we get to pass judgment on people like we're better than everybody else!
Faith: We are better!
- 3x15 Consequences
Obviously, this is something that Buffy has to reckon with and fight against. But there is a glimmer of truth here, because at the end of S2, she does take the power of life and death into her own hands. She is faced with the choice between Angel and the world and decides that Angel should die. She had to, that's the position she has to be in because she is the Slayer. She has to be a Killer because she is a Slayer. So the two are intertwined.
More than this, Faith is someone who at least appears to revel in the kill. Up until now, we hadn't really seen Buffy enjoy being a slayer, but Faith does. Buffy is genuinely drawn to that, to slaying for pleasure. The equation of slaying/killing and sex for Buffy is first explicitly drawn by Faith in this season. ("Isn't it crazy how slaying always makes you hungry and horny?"). Slayers are very much like vampires in that respect, blurring the line between sex and death. In general, Faith introduces the idea that Buffy is drawn to killing - not just to protect people (the ideal of a Slayer), but for its own benefit. That's something that Buffy continues to struggle with going forward.
I have said before that Faith in S3 is an echo of Angel in S2, both in Buffy's relationship to them both and how that shifts mid-season, and in how it ends. In Graduation Day, Buffy again is given the power of life and death. This time, it's more personal - she can stop Angel dying by killing Faith. It's not such a straightforward (for want of a better word) decision as Angel .vs. the literal entire world, it's just the value of one life against the other. Another trolley problem, and it's not an easy choice, but it's still a choice. Just as she chose the lesser evil in killing Angel in S2, she kills the person filling the Angel role in S3. And this time, the choice is explicitly tied to the idea of being a Killer. Faith is set up as the person that Buffy could be in a slightly different world, and that person is a Killer, as Faith herself claims.
"What are you gonna do, B? Kill me? You become me. You're not ready for that, yet."
- Faith Lehane, 3x17 Enemies
"You did it, B. You killed me."
- Faith Lehane, 3x22 Graduation Day
In the act of choosing to pull the lever, Buffy has to kill. In the act of killing, she has become her dark mirror. In the act of defeating/becoming Faith, she becomes again the sole Slayer. Being a killer and a Slayer again intertwined. It's interesting here that she then makes the decision to feed herself to Angel. She unravels the trolley problem by throwing herself on the tracks. It's fascinating that between the dual trolley-problem finales of Becoming and The Gift, where in the first Buffy chooses to pull the lever, and in the latter she refuses and chooses a third option, Graduation Day exists in the middle as a stepping stone where she kind of does both.
The bulk of S4 is a little lighter on this theme, instead examining The Slayer as a role that must be juggled amongst a series of competing roles as Buffy's life as an adult becomes more fractured. There are flavours of it in Fear Itself, where Buffy fears that her friends will leave and her destiny lies with death and the dead, but otherwise not too much jumps out at me. Except, of course, for Restless, which is so heavy with this theme. It's one of the many reasons why I kind of consider Restless an honourary part of S5, as it's setting up the themes and arcs of S5 as much as it's wrapping up the like from S4.
RILEY: Hey there, killer.
BUFFY: We're not demons.
ADAM: Is that a fact?
RILEY: Thought you were looking for your friends. Okay, killer...
TARA: I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone.
BUFFY: The Slayer.
FIRST SLAYER: No friends! Just the kill.
OK, so SO much to unpack here. This is all within the under-10-minute sequence of Buffy's dream, and in that sequence she constantly shows a fear that she is in fact a "killer". It's clearly strong in her mind. Riley calls her "killer" multiple times, and Adam equates her with him, and with demonhood. I also find it very interesting how she responds to Tara's words, which are very literally describing the act of kiling ("the action of death...the blood cry...the penetrating wound"). She hears that and immediately identifies her as the Slayer, so slayerhood and killing are clearly bound up together in her mind.
Central to her concerns is the dichotomy between friendship and death. This was built up in Fear Itself, and it's central here. Riley and Sineya both frame it as a choice, between friendship and "the kill". This is a fear that Buffy has already, since S1, that her Slayer life will stop her ability to have a "normal" life of friends and family, but it also sets up her arc in S5 nicely. She chooses her friends over becoming a pure instrument of death in Restless, but that does not resolve her ongoing fears. They existed before and continue to dwell even more strongly in her mind, with words that both Sineya and Dracula repeat.
"You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You haven't even begun."
This sets the stage for S5, and her arc of choosing between family and being the Slayer. Friendship and family are presented as more of less one and the same a few episodes later in Family, and the choice Buffy is faced with in S5 is another trolley problem - the life of Dawn against the world. This time, it's more specifically tied to the Slayer/Killer dichotomy through the prophecy that Buffy is faced with ("Death is your gift"). This frames the similar choices she faced in Becoming and Graduation Day in the same light, with Buffy even specifically comparing this to the former.
BUFFY: I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much. But I knew ... what was right. I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point. I just wish that... I just wish my mom was here. The spirit guide told me that death is my gift. Guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer after all.
- 5x22 The Gift
S5 is soaked in this Killer-vs-Slayer idea, and that's part of why I love it so much. It opens with Buffy having gained an appreciation of killing. She goes out not to patrol, but to hunt. To revel in the enjoyment of the kill, just as Faith did. There's also a constant theme of people identifying Buffy as a Killer. Importantly, it's a theme of her believing them. She knows that there is a kernel of truth there, and it develops from a subconcious worry in Restless to a more concrete fear in Intervention, where Buffy explicitly says that she is afraid that being the Slayer means losing her humanity and ability to love, and become nothing more than a "killer". Eventually, Buffy is so ground down by it that when The Gift rolls around, she simply accepts that the Slayer is "just a killer" as an inevitability.
BUFFY: Yeah, I prefer the term slayer. You know, killer just sounds so...
DRACULA: Naked?
- 5x01 Buffy vs Dracula
SPIKE: Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace.
- 5x07 Fool for Love
FIRST SLAYER: Death is your gift.
- 5x18 Intervention
I also like the way that Joyce is repeatedly linked to this idea. Buffy's response to Sineya points to Joyce's death as a rebuttal to the idea of death being a gift ("Death is not a gift. My mother just died. I know this."). Buffy talks about Joyce just before accepting that "a slayer is a killer" in The Gift. Spike's speech about Slayer's having a death wish comes immediately before Buffy finds out that Joyce is going into hospital. The idea of the Slayer as an instrument of death, killing every day, is juxtaposed against the mundane horror of what death is really like, as demonstrated in The Body. As the Slayer, Buffy must cause death, but this is what death looks like. It's hard and painful and mortal and stupid. Eventually Buffy reaches a point where she just can't do this anymore. She can't live in a world where she must choose to be a killer, because she understands death more now than ever.
It's here that the show explicitly connects the ideas of utilitarianism and being a killer. Buffy says that killing Dawn to save the world (and by association killing Angel to save the world, or killing Faith to save Angel), would make the Slayer "just a killer". This goes back to S3, and Faith arguing that the death of one innocent was washed out by the many people that they save, and that being Slayers gives them the right to make that calculation. Tara points to Giles in this episode, the voice of utilitarianism, and identifies him as a killer. Giles himself identifies himself as one when he kills Ben, and here draws a line between being a utilitarian/killer, and being a hero.
BEN: Need a ... a minute. She could've killed me.
GILES: No she couldn't. Never. ... She's a hero, you see. She's not like us.
Some people criticise the moral absolutism of this, and could very justifiably argue that killing Ben, or even killing Dawn, would be the most moral thing in this situation. Who are we to say that Dawn's life is more valuable than the lives of a thousand other 14 year old girls, with families of their own that love them just as much as Buffy loves Dawn? But within the context of the show, I think it makes sense for them to reject utilitarianism. Buffy is a Sisyphean story. There will always be another apocalypse after this one is stopped. There will always be another impossible choice with innocent lives in the balance. Through that lens, the idea of "killing one to save a thousand" becomes meaningless, because there's a thousand apocalypses, and if you kill one to stop them all, then you've killed a thousand. That's how Buffy feels - she killed Angel, she killed Faith, now she has to kill Dawn? Where does it end? Eventually it all just gets stripped away, so what's the point? There's no winning move here. The only way to break the cycle is to change the game.
We should also keep in mind Buffy's words at the start of the episode. She fears that the Slayer is "just a killer", but she is also identified by the guy she saves in the alley in the opening scene as "just a girl". And Buffy agrees ("That's what I keep saying."). Buffy is The Vampire Slayer, which dictates that she must make these impossible choices, but she's also Buffy, which means she is a human being with the power of free will. She gets a choice - not a good choice, but a choice. As a human being, she can reject the options in front of her and find a third way. She can transform the whole game, and turn "Death is your gift" into an empowering statement. This was heavily foreshadowed of course - the Guide in Intervention outright stated that Buffy was full of love, and that "love will bring [her] to [her] gift". But it takes Buffy working through these fears and emotions and realising that she simply can't take Dawn's life. She chooses a new way. She avoids being a killer by rejecting utilitarian ethics. To paraphrase The Last Jedi, she wins by saving what she loves. Ultimately, she's not a killer, but a girl, a friend, a sister, a Slayer - a hero.
So season five is very much the climax and resolution of this theme. Very few themes ever disappear entirely from this show though, and this one continues to echo throughout the show. In S6, Buffy again fears she is slipping into darkness. That there is some kind of darkness that is innate within her. But where in S5 this was a fear that she recoiled from but at times seemed inevitable, in S6 it is something that she is drawn towards, that disgusts her but that she takes a kind of comfort in, because it's easier than facing the mundane reality of her depression.
This yearning for her own darkness takes the physical form of Spike, who she uses for what is basically sexual self-harm. Spike steps into Faith's role as Buffy's shadow self for much of the later seasons, and , and like Faith he represents killing as hedonism, and as sex. There's no vampire who so aggressively blurs the lines of sex and death/violence as Spike. Her fear that killing is part of her nature, and her fear of her own sexual desire, are very much one and the same. When she breaks down in Dead Things, she talks about the darkness within her, and of her shame over her own sexuality.
Spike also repeats Faith's utilitarian justifications from Consequences in the episode which forms the climax of Buffy's self-destruction, Dead Things. When Buffy attempts to metaphorically commit suicide by turning herself into the police, she does it while constantly identifying herself as a killed. She repeats some variation on "I killed her" four times in just two scenes. She wants to be punished for being a killer, and not protected for being the slayer. She has grappled with this several times, and is still resolute that being the slayer does not give her a license to kill, but this time she is desperate to be seen as a killer, to give justification for her own self-hatred.
The final way S6 explores this idea is with Willow. When she is after Warren, Buffy tries to stop her, not for Warren's sake but for Willow's. She knows that taking a life changes a person, and implicitly draws on the first time she chose to take a human's life, the moment she "became a killer" on that rooftop with Faith.
Buffy (re: going to kill Faith): I can't play kid games anymore. This is how she wants it.
Xander: I just don't want to lose you.
Buffy: I won't get hurt.
Xander: That's not what I mean.
- 3x21 Graduation Day
XANDER: She should be coming down at some point, shouldn't she? I mean, back there she was out of her head ... running on grief and magicks.
BUFFY: Doesn't matter . Willow just killed someone. Killing people changes you. Believe me, I know.
- 6x21 Two to Go
Killing Warren might have been justified given what a complete piece of shit he was - just as killing Angel was justified, just as killing Faith was, just as killing Ben was. That doesn't matter, because Buffy still recognises that the act of killing leaves permanent psychological scars, which she is still bearing.
In S7, we get the final major exploration of the "does the Slayer have a right to kill" idea in Selfless. Here, Buffy seems to have reached the conclusion that Cordelia, Faith and Spike (all her shadow selves) were right, and she does, in fact, have the right to pass judgment because she's the Slayer, when she decides she has to kill Anya.
"It is always different! It's always complicated. And at some point, someone has to draw the line, and that is always going to be me. You get down on me for cutting myself off, but in the end the slayer is always cut off. There's no mystical guidebook. No all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me. I am the law."
- 7x05 Selfless
However, I don't think the show wants us to take this as gospel. Buffy is conclusively proved wrong in this episode, since killing Anya doesn't work, and it's Willow who finds a third option that saves the day. In S7, the idea of the Slayer-as-Killer is more an incidental theme, while the central exploration is the idea of "one girl in all the world". It explores the nature of that tragedy, that Buffy is by definition alone. Because of this, she necessarily must be a killer. She does have to pass judgement, because there is nobody else capable of it. She has to be the one to hunt and kill vampires. She has to face the choice to kill Angel, to kill Faith, to kill Dawn, to kill Anya.
This is where the theme ends up - as a tragic inevitability. Buffy must always make that choice. Making the selfless choice to kill her boyfriend doesn't stop it. Avoiding the choice and dying herself doesn't even stop it. That boulder just rolls down the hill again and again, and Buffy is the only one who can push it back up. The Slayer is a killer because the Slayer is alone. So the only way to break that cycle is for the Slayer to no longer be alone. There are still elements of The Slayer, and of Buffy as a person, that are linked to death and killing, but she has mostly made peace with those parts, and now can be free of having to be "the law" too.
I could talk about the episode ‘Restless’ forever really because that’s an episode that will never tire or get old for me. I’ll always find and pick up more from it each time I watch it. It’s absolutely my favourite episode. But I want to talk about something specific. That is Tara’s significance to Willow/Xander/Buffy and her use and representation in their individual dreams.
For Willow: a guide for moving forward.
For Xander: a sexual fantasy along with Willow.
For Buffy: a means of identifying and communicating with the deepest parts of herself.
Tara’s significance to Willow would obviously be the most overt as her girlfriend and her soulmate. For Willow, Tara represents a new way forward in life. There’s not really much to explain here as watching the show will reveal to you how significant she is.
Tara’s significance to Xander is controversial and nauseating for the audience watching. He can only think of her in regards to her sexual relationship with Willow, making him address his own sexuality in how he perceives women loving women. There’s not much to think about. It doesn’t go any deeper than that.
Tara’s significance to Buffy. Well, since ‘Restless’ is full of foreshadowing, it’s easy to see why she is represented as a communication conduit for Buffy in understanding the First Slayer. It parallels with ‘Who Are You’ where she was also the method of exposing the Buffy/Faith body swap. Effectively conveying Buffy’s subtextual relationship to the Dark Slayer too. But it’s more so than that. Tara becomes a confidant to Buffy when she has to address her emotions going through the most tumultuous, scariest and darkest times of her life. Tara’s significance to Buffy is by far the most interesting. And as such - so is her use in Buffy’s dream. It deserves endless discussions because it really isn’t spelled (ha) out for the audience like it is with her significance to Willow and Xander.
But that’s another thing I love about the episode ‘Restless’. Tara’s use and representation in it. I have heard from some fans that the character really isn’t all that interesting away from her relationship with Willow. And as such gets neglected quite a lot. And while I do agree that she was abused and neglected... I don’t agree that she’s uninteresting as a stand-alone character. Tara has such a calming and comforting presence and that’s best depicted in the episode ‘The Body’ where she does act as a source of comfort to Willow, Buffy and Xander. This behaviour or quality about Tara is not uninteresting or boring…
It’s underappreciated. What ‘Restless’ does is foreshadows the true nature of Tara Maclay. And all it really shows when people refer to her as boring or uninteresting is that they can’t appreciate her.
This is the long-delayed continuation of my analysis of the intratextual parallels in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Dead Things.” I made some edits and added a section to that first part, so you might want to revisit it before reading the rest. In this half I’ll be discussing: (1) the issues of personhood and self-possession that the parallels to Faith bring up during the alley beating scene, (2) the context being used to frame Buffy turning herself in as a pseudo-suicidal act, (3) how the episode’s takes on identity and romantic love expand on the takes in the earlier seasons, and (4) why this sort of parallelism is interesting and valuable. More discussion of the episode’s themes around moral responsibility, agency, and identity is threaded throughout.
[Warnings: (1) This post assumes knowledge of the episode and show. (2) I discuss pretty much everything that happens in season six, which means there will be references to rape/assault. In addition to all the other unpleasant things that happen that season that one might not want to read about. (3) It’s about 11,000 words long.]
Not long after I posted my essay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s sixth season, I realized it made barely any mention of Dead Things. Which was a bit of a surprise, given that it’s not just one of my favorite episodes of Buffy, it’s one of my favorite episodes of TV, period.
There are lots of ways for something to be a good episode of TV. It can be good on its own terms, and be successful as a discrete 15-45-minute bit of comedy, drama, storytelling, experimentation, whatever. It can also be good as, essentially, somewhat longer-form cinema, which is how I think of TV that’s been made to be viewed all at once. Things like Ken Burns documentaries, BBC miniseries or many of those 6-12 episode Netflix seasons. The narrative and stylistic conventions aren’t always “cinematic”, but the built-in completeness of the work is. An episode can also be good as something that plays with or maximizes the conventions of TV specifically.
Then there are episodes that are good because of how they slot into a larger work, and bring things out in it. In true longform, often open-ended storytelling, the difficulty lies in (a) creating a basic, artistically compelling premise that can be riffed on, and (b) riffing on it in a coherent and complicated way. One of the reasons that Buffy is a show I’ve returned to a lot is that it succeeds very well on both fronts. Its basic premise is “what if we updated the mythic hero narrative to be more human and modern, and centered a character type that would normally be a victim in someone else’s hero story.” It’s a premise that combines the broadness of myth with the specificity of wanting to comment on myth, and so is a fertile ground for thematic exploration. And then of course, the show takes full advantage of that fertile premise. Each season complicates the idea of what it means to be heroic or mature, and challenges Buffy to grow up in increasingly subtle ways.
People talk about “liking continuity” in longform works, but rarely articulate why continuity is something likeable or artistically desirable. At its best, what continuity means is that a story remembers what has happened in the story so far, and creates meaning from it. Which really, is just a matter of being a good work of art. It’s a matter of being coherent, intentful, and not wasting the audience’s attention. It’s a matter of taking full advantage of all the tools one has to be artistic.
So what I like about Dead Things is that it’s not just a complicated story in its own right, but is intensely referential in a way that adds depth to that story, as well as to previous episodes, and Buffy’s arc as a whole. It features a truly outrageous number of parallels, both within the episode and to episodes from every single other season. Even more outrageously, every one of those parallels is rich with meaning and intent. I’ve seen many of them pointed out elsewhere, but not all in one place. So in the interest of exploring how to make truly intratextual TV, this post is an attempt to document them, and explain what they might be doing.
Dead Things is, broadly, about moral agency and culpability. Much of season six depicts characters failing to take responsibility for their own problems. Characters making use of other people because they refuse to do things themselves. If each season of Buffy has to do with a different aspect of growing up, then season six has to do with not wanting or not being able to grow up. Sometimes understandably, when “growing up” means having to deal with things like finances or pushing through a debilitating depression. Sometimes less understandably, if “not growing up” means you wipe your girlfriend’s memory or think turning women into sex slaves makes you cool.
These themes come to a head in Dead Things, an episode that makes both our hero and our villains deal with a crisis of moral responsibility, and has no easy answers for any of them. It’s a one-off, midseason episode (episode 13 of 22, to be precise), but it casts a long shadow over not just season six, but I’d argue–the entire show. Something that becomes more and more apparent the more references to past and future episodes you notice. I’ll take them approximately in order.
[Warnings: (1) This post assumes knowledge of the episode and show. (2) I discuss pretty much everything that happens in season six, which means there will be references to rape/assault. In addition to all the other unpleasant things that happen that season that one might not want to read about. (3) It’s about 7500 words long. The next post will be of similar length.]
I saw a post about how when Spike wears traditionally “masculine” clothes he looks like he’s in drag and on a rewatch I realised he’s not the only one so I present Spike, Buffy and Faith:
Their I’m-not-in-disguise outfits
Their I’m-totally-normal-in-a-socially-acceptable-cishet-way outfits
And their Please-like-me outfits*
(*although Spike and Buffy’s are romantic/sexual and Faith’s is familial)
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