HAVE A SERIES OF RANDOM THOUGHTS

[blackfrancine]

Let's talk about some serious bidness, folks. Like I mentioned, I've been rewatching BtVS and I just started AtS as well.  And I have feelings aplenty. 


Here's my Buffy/Angel rewatch thoughts, in no particular order:

1. SMG is the most adorable human being in the history of the universe.  

2.  Cave Buffy is the most adorable iteration of adorable SMG in the universe. 

3. "Gutterface" is my new favorite saying. 

 

4. The exposition that keeps happening in the early AtS episodes is really annoying (though, I guess, understandable)

5. I just love everybody.  All the characters are so darn lovable in seasons 2-4. Except maybe Angel.  When Giles is wearing that big, stupid sombrero, my heart just melts.  I love him so much I could die.  And Xander.  He's actually pretty great in season 4 (so far)--I love how at the end of Beer Bad, when Cave Buffy turns to go the wrong way, he just instantly turns her in the correct direction, and without even a second glance, they walk off together.  There's something so sweet and great about that.  

6. One of my favorite Willow moments is when she goes and cries in the bathroom after finding out that Xander slept with Faith.  It reminds me of me at my best friend's wedding.  At the reception, halfway through, I just went to the bathroom and bawled.  I couldn't tell you why.  But I just couldn't stop.  I just wanna hold Willow in my arms and rock her back and forth, there.  Poor baby.  

7.  I don't understand the overwhelming affection for the mayor in fandom.  He's creepy.  And not in a cute way--in a creepy way.  His connection to Faith is creepy, not sweet.  They simply haven't had the time to establish that type of bond--Faith needed something desperately, so she accepted this creepy brand of affection (after all, weird love is better than no love)--but the mayor doesn't have that excuse.  His weird fatherly thing is gross--you don't just go around infantilizing and adopting grown women.  It's not sweet.  I'm sorry.

8.Angel is HORRIBLE in season 3.  OH MY GOD I'M SO BORED WITH HIM IN SEASON 3 IT'S ABSURD.  ABSURD, I SAY.  And for the love of God.  You don't dump a girl before the prom, okay, people?  WTF.  First Scott Hope dumps her before Homecoming, then Angel before prom.  This is just unbelievably bad manners.  

9. The Willow/Buffy power conflict is interesting-- Fear Alone has gotta be the place it's most obvious until we get to season 6 ("Just because you're the Slayer doesn't mean you're in charge. I'm not your sidekick").  Ima gonna keep an eye on it.  

 

10.  Whatever, this probably says something horrible about me, but I just don't care: Spike is ridiculously hot in Harsh Light of Day (and in In the Dark--when he says "I may be I slow learner, but I catch on eventually," and at the end when he turns over the table and says he's not working with a partner again--OH THE IRONY. HE AND BUFFY WILL BE THE ULTIMATE PARTNERS)

 

11.  Cordelia.  <3.  Can I just say that I think Cordelia in the hospital when she turns and tells Xander to leave her alone, is not only heartbreaking, but heartbreakingly beautiful?  She's so lovely and vulnerable there.   Poor sweet girl.  And watching the part where she's talking to Buffy in class and says "that was BX" (ie 'before Xander') just kills me.  She really is so invested in that relationship, and he just isn't.  
12. OH!  Angel in... Graduation Day, I guess--when he insists on following Buffy home and carrying the box of evidence from the vulcan(ologist)'s home for her and she gets snippy he calls her a brat.  A BRAT.  Are you effing kidding me?!  You're the one that followed her there.  She told you to leave, and you wouldn't.  You dumped her, dickhead.  And now you're all up in her grill asking what you can do for her... but all she wants is for it to be over.  AND YOU WON'T LET IT BE.  And somehow SHE'S a brat?  Give me a break.  

 

13. What is the deal with Giles and Angel in season 3, anyway?  In that scene I was just talking about, in Graduation Day, Angel says that Giles called him and asked him to back Buffy up.  Does anybody actually believe this?  Since when does Angel have a phone?  And even if Giles is willing to help Angel for Buffy's sake and willing to accept help from him for the sake of humanity, I don't know that he's calling Angel up on the phone to talk like they're some kind of talking buddies.  I call bullshit.  Angel was stalking again, wasn't he?  Which only reinforces my stand on the "Buffy's a brat" issue.  

 

14.  I think season 3 makes clear in no uncertain terms how the show feels about the B/A age difference.  It's creepy.  There's just too many instances of Angel being this sophisticated, advice-giving elder who reads Portuguese poetry and Sartre and does Tai Chi to align his chakras or whatever, and Buffy's this "bratty" kid who doodles on notebooks and goes to school dances.  Season 3 is like the season of the creepy male/female relationship--the mayor with Faith and Buffy with Angel.

 

15. It's interesting how the credits to AtS are filled with damsels in distress.  And it's interesting the weird sort of sputtering sexual dynamic between Angel and Kate.  It makes me wonder if the Angel/Kate situation couldn't get off the ground because she wasn't enough of a damsel in distress for him at that point (I don't think that's what he always needs--Darla, Buffy, and Cordelia are evidence enough on that point), but at that moment he seems confused by Kate's self-effacing assertiveness and by her competence, to some extent. 

 

16. Oz.  I love that Oz expresses concern about Willow going too far, too fast with magic (in HLoD, I think). It makes me sad that Oz left.  But I also think it's interesting, because Oz and Tara may have ended up in the exact same place--being the one to try and hold Willow together, hold her to the earth, and failing. And perhaps he'd have left Willow because of the magic too. Though, Oz says he's support Willow no matter what--but I think that's until the mind wiping and what have you.  

 

17.  Also an interesting thing I realized:  All of the Scoobies have somewhat humiliating first sexual experiences--Buffy with Angel(us); when Willow tries to seduce Oz, but is turned down (less humiliating, but for a girl, it's a bit of a blow to the ego if your teenage boyfriend doesn't wanna bang you); and Xander with Faith--which is only made worse by Buffy saying Faith thinks of her conquests as a joke, and then Faith mocking him and trying to rape/kill him.  Xander and Buffy actually had very similar first sexual encounters.  Those poor kids.  That Scooby bond is forged in the fires of pain, I tell ya.  

 

18.  It's interesting to watch Willow forming her new "cool" identity in college.  She's the one who fits in right away--she comes in with a cool boyfriend, knows her way around literally and intellectually, makes new friends (we see her chatting with other people in her dorm), she goes to parties and out on dates.  And she's getting the confidence to speak up (or at least voice her issues out loud to herself).  For instance, after first watching Oz lust after Veruca in Beer Bad, she doesn't say anything to him, but she does do a little mini rant to herself about it.  And that's a start.  And, as I said in #9, she gives Buffy some lip when Buffy discourages her from trying a spell in Fear Alone.  It's too bad that this ability to speak up about her concerns and issues isn't so tied to this new "coolness" of hers. Because that constructed identity is ultimately so destructive--both allowing her the power to speak and act out her anger, but giving her the security of never having to really expose herself.  
 

19. Oh!  Larry.  Can we talk about how great a guy Larry is?  I'm so sad that he died in Graduation Day.  I can't remember where I read recently that Larry is a person who (as evinced by his role as a white hat in The Wish) has a hero lurking just under his surface.  When I first read that, I thought it was a valid point, but maybe overstating his potential.  But after rewatching season 3, I'm all about Larry.  The tiny little snippets we see of him in Earshot show him to have such a capacity for kindness and empathy (asking Xander if he's having a hard time living with the burden of being closeted) and personal bravery (coming out so soon and so young and as someone so steeped in the jock-machismo culture).  And when we see him again in Graduation Day, he's a leader, helping to assemble the army and get supplies together.  It's clear that his role in the Wishverse wasn't a fluke.  That guy is solid gold.  

 

20.  The Prom still makes me cry.  And part of me hates Angel for showing up--making that moment that was so pure and warm and perfect into something painful and bittersweet.  But the other part of me feels for him.  He was trying to do the right thing--as usual.  He didn't realize that it was just more back and forth for Buffy to deal with.  More emotional whiplash.  

 

Also, I really, really wish we could've had Buffy and Giles dance together at the end, after she gets her award.  Though, I will say, I love the way that Giles just takes the award from her without saying anything as soon as he sees Angel.  That's so gentle and sweet.  <3