Thoughts on Rewatching S3E08, “Lovers’ Walk” (1/2): The human romances
Ehhhhhh. Plenty of parts of this episode are fun enough to watch, and I can see why a lot of people (e.g. Spike fans) would love it, but I have to be honest that I don’t really like it, personally. It just sort of rubs me the wrong way.
One way to put the basic problem is that it feels like it was written to be a comedy, rather than being written to be a story that’s then also funny. One key difference is that most of what happens is sort of just random chance, coincidence, or contrivance, rather than being the meaningful consequences of the character’s choices and actions. The eventual resolution here is almost purely by chance - Buffy and Angel don’t achieve anything by their efforts, Willow and Xander don’t achieve anything by their efforts, but everything works out because 1) Spike gets into a fight and it’s good for his mental health, and 2) Oz has previously-unmentioned-werewolf-smell-powers and they happen to be driving by the right spot.
I’ll start by jotting down some thoughts on the human-for-human relationships (i.e. the Xillow cheating plotline) because it exemplifies this particularly clearly, and because most of my thoughts on the vampires and vampirophiles takes the form of defensive headcanons (i.e. attempts to give good answers to various awkward questions the episode raises about vampires and mayors and magic shops.)
So: Xander and Willow. The foundation is already shaky, in that the previous episodes have rather failed to make this relationship either compelling or plausible. And then in this episode everything sort of happens for no reason. They keep kissing each other because of this sudden strange compulsion that comes over them - and which they both seem equally affected by, and equally dismayed by, at exactly the same time. (I feel like it would be so much more interesting if one or the other was pursuing, or one or the other was resisting successfully, rather than them just both being united in wanting to not kiss but failing to.)
They are eventually found out by random chance, and then Cordelia falls through the stairs and is injured on a metal bar by random chance, but she’s going to be ok because it didn’t pierce any vital organs… by random chance.
And yes. the Cordelia death fake-out is pretty funny, sure… but it feels like it’s at a place in the episode, at the big climax, where you’d expect to find things that actually matter, so it instead being a gag just adds to my feeling like the episode’s not really worth it. Like it’s putting too much weight on being funny? And that’s not the main thing I’m watching for?
Now to be fair, there are some choices made, at least if you count failures to choose as a type of choice. Both Willow and Xander fail to just stop kissing, which is, I think, actually fairly grounded in their characters. Neither of them are self-disciplined people, though Willow can give the superficial impression of it. (And “I never knew there was something inside me that could feel this bad” is also revealing, in its own way.)
The problem is that we still don’t really know why they have this desire now, all of sudden (and will stop having it abruptly as soon as this episode ends), so the character insight is very partial.
Willow does at least seem to see the situation as calling for some sort of action - whether that’s trying to confess to Buffy (last episode) or wanting to cancel their bowling plans or, in the extreme, resorting to an “anti-love spell.” The contrast between this and Xander, who seems content to just sort of coast along, is also grounded in character: Willow is consistently someone who believes problems can be solved if you just look hard enough for a solution, while Xander has this sort of gallows humour pessimism.
But! None of Willow’s choices have any meaningful consequences! Her confession to Buffy was derailed by Lagos and she lost her nerve, and this episode she never gets to cast her anti-love spell. You could argue that her attempt is what gives Spike his idea and leads to him capturing them, but… there’s no reasonable way to foresee that result, it’s not connected to her motivations or values, it’s just pure coincidence. Hence the overall feeling that the episode is structured primarily as a comedy.
It would almost be more interesting to see things play out without Spike there: does she convince Xander to go through with the spell? Does she use it as a sort of leverage: he goes and confesses to Buffy or else she’ll magic him? (Did she really expect him not to notice the spellbook, or was the plan always for him to realise what she intended?) If Buffy does find out, what does she do?
But hmph yeah. I guess I appreciate the symmetry: we begin with three couples (sort of) on good terms and one broken up; we end with the first three broken up and Spike setting off to win Drusilla back. But almost none of it sticks: two of those couples are back together very quickly, and Spike is still dumped next time we see him. It’s just first a bunch of dramatic things happened one after another. :/
ok but i love grace and kat's storyline in packing light so much like my gf and i have literally been talking about this for ages, that they are so similar in their upbringing and their experiences with their parents but that they turned out so fundamentally different bc kat had such an amazing support system in her brother and her friends and grace didn't. and now they both desire what the other has and think they have no right to complain about their life, kat wants grace's talent and technical perfection and grace wants kat's support system and ahhh the intricacies i'm going insane
