A while ago, I learned that my original "Buffy: From the beginning" thread was mistakenly deleted while older, longer threads were being cleaned out of the message boards. This bummed me out for a while, and it's probably the main reason it took me so long to continue it. But I made a note of my grades for the episodes up to this point as well as I can remember (I may be off by a half grade for some of the episodes). And I've picked up tonight where I left off: season 4 - "Wild at Heart."

SEASON 1:

"Welcome to the Hellmouth" - B+
"The Harvest" - B+
"The Witch" - B
"Teacher's Pet" - B-
"Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" - A-
"The Pack" - B+
"Angel" - A
"I Robot, You Jane" - B-
"The Puppet Show" - A
"Nightmares" - B+
"Out of Mind, Out of Sight" - B+
"Prophecy Girl" - A+

SEASON 2:

"When She Was Bad" - A
"Some Assembly Required" - C
"School Hard" - A-
"Inca Mummy Girl" - B
"Reptile Boy" - C
"Halloween" - B
"Lie to Me" - A+
"The Dark Age" - A-
"What's My Line, Part 1" - A-
"What's my Line, Part 2" - A-
"Ted" - A
"Bad Eggs" - B
"Surprise" - A-
"Innocence" - A+
"Phases" - A-
"Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" - A-
"Passion" - A+
"Killed By Death" - B
"I Only Have Eyes for You" - B+
"Go Fish" - A-
"Becoming, Part 1" - A
"Becoming, Part 2" - A+

SEASON 3:

"Anne" - B+
"Dead Man's Party" - C+
"Faith, Hope & Trick" - A
"Beauty and the Beasts" - B+
"Homecoming" - B+
"Band Candy" - B+
"Revelations" - A-
"Lovers Walk" - A
"The Wish" - A-
"Amends" - A+
"Gingerbread" - A
"Helpless" - A-
"The Zeppo" - B-
"Bad Girls" - B
"Consequences" - A-
"Doppelgangland" - A-
"Enemies" - B+
"Earshot" - A+
"Choices" - B
"The Prom" - A
"Graduation Day, Part 1" - A-
"Graduation Day, Part 2" - A+

SEASON 4:

"The Freshman" - A
"Living Conditions" - B-
"The Harsh Light of Day" - B
"Fear, Itself" - B+
"Beer Bad" - B
"Wild at Heart" - A-
"The Initiative" - B+
"Pangs" - C-
"Something Blue" - B
"Hush" - A+
"Doomed" - B
"A New Man" - B+
"The I in Team" - A-
"Goodbye Iowa" - B
"This Year's Girl" - B+
"Who Are You?" - A-
"Superstar" - A-
"Where the Wild Things Are" - B-
"New Moon Rising" - A-
"The Yoko Factor" - B+
"Primeval" - A-
"Restless" - A+

SEASON 5:

"Buffy vs. Dracula" - C
"Real Me" - B+
"The Replacement" - B
"Out of My Mind" - B
"No Place Like Home" - A-
"Family" - B+
"Fool For Love" - A+
"Shadow" - A-
"Listening to Fear" - A
"Into the Woods" - A-
"Triangle" - B+
"Checkpoint" - B+
"Blood Ties" - B+
"Crush" - A-
"I Was Made to Love You" - A-
"The Body" - A+
"Forever" - A
"Intervention" - B
"Tough Love" - B-
"Spiral" - B+
"The Weight of the World" - C+
"The Gift" - A+

SEASON 6:

"Bargaining" - A+
"After Life" - A-
"Flooded" - B
"Life Serial" - B+
"All the Way" - B-
"Once More with Feeling" - A+
"Tabula Rasa" - B-
"Smashed" - C+
"Wrecked" - B+
"Gone" - B+
"Doublemeat Palace" - B-
"Dead Things" - B+
"Older and Faraway" - C-
"As You Were" - A
"Hell's Bells" - A
"Normal Again" - A-
"Entropy" - B-
"Seeing Red" - C
"Villains" - A-
"Two to Go" - B-
"Grave" - B-

SEASON 7:

"Lessons" - A
"Beneath You" - B+
"Same Time, Same Place" - B+
"Help" - A-
"Selfless" - A-
"Him" - A-
"Conversations with Dead People" - A+
"Sleeper" - B+
"Never Leave Me" - B
"Bring on the Night" - B-
"Showtime" - B
"Potential" - C+
"The Killer in Me" - C+
"First Date" - B+
"Get it Done" - B+
"Storyteller" - A-
"Lies My Parents Told Me" - A-
"Dirty Girls" - A-
"Empty Places" - B+
"Touched" - B+
"End of Days" - A-
"Chosen" - A+

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WILD AT HEART
Grade: A-

I noticed something this time around that I hadn’t quite noticed before while watching “Wild at Heart.” Oz’s feral paramour Veruca isn’t so much a character of her own as she is an extension of him. She’s the personification of his animal instincts, his primal id, his violent impulses. When she speaks, we learn about him. She is all the parts of him that he lies to himself about.

In “Wild at Heart,” Oz tells us that he has no memory of his behavior when he changes to a wolf during the full moon, and all of a sudden, we don’t believe him anymore. There’s too much recognition in the way he looks at Veruca the morning after. There’s too much secrecy in the way he discusses her to Willow. We look back on previous episodes and figure that Oz was probably always more animal than he wanted to admit.

The episode features Emmy-worthy performances from Seth Green and Alyson Hannigan. Green uses his trademark stoicism to show us his mind at work: the doubt, the desire, the eventual resignation to who he has become after killing Veruca. And Hannigan does such a good job of expressing the subtle rift growing between her and Oz, which is no more pronounced than when she finds Oz in his cell with Veruca. Mousy Willow weeps and mourns, while vampy Veruca glares and taunts. And she breaks our heart when Oz leaves her for her own good. He’s right to: We recognize, as he finally recognizes, the danger in him that puts her at risk.

Willow meets her mousy match later in the season: Tara. The great irony is that her biggest conflicts with her will be the result of something dangerous in Willow that Tara cannot live with.

THE INITIATIVE
Grade: B+

The primary components of season four’s Initiative storyline — their objective, Spike’s chip, the involvement of Riley and Professor Walsh — are revealed in adequate fashion — entertaining, but not spectacular. Lines like “What kind of girl is gonna go out with a guy who's acting all Joe Regular by day and then turns all demon-hunter by night?” don’t exactly sparkle, and, though I’ve always been reluctant to admit it, the Initiative set looks like an empty warehouse lined with tin foil.

But what starts slowly becomes more satisfying as the episode progresses. We get to know Riley better in this episode than we have previously. At first, he’s affable but bland, calling Buffy “peculiar,” punching Parker in the face (always a happy moment), and stumbling awkwardly on the realization that he likes her. Things pick up when he visits Willow: Marc Blucas and Alyson Hannigan has excellent chemistry, so much so that it’s not too hard to imagine the showing pairing them and making Buffy a lesbian. There’s a noble sincerity in the way Riley asks for Willow’s help, risking the wrath of the Best Friend just to pick up some ice breakers to use when talking to Buffy.

When the Initiative is on a mission that conflicts with Buffy’s (finding Spike, who escaped Initiative custody), it leads to a scene of classic romantic comedy: Riley and Buffy are both on the same mission and hiding it from each other, and both have to find a creative way of getting the other to stay out of the way. The playfulness of the scene is charming.

In the background of the episode is Willow, still reeling from the events of “Wild at Heart.” But though she’s a subplot, Hannigan manages to infuse her lighthearted scenes with meaning and nuance. In her scene with Riley, she gives a great comic speech about how he and Buffy will fall in love, but one will leave, and the other will be heartbroken. (As luck would have it, she was exactly right.) And she also has a cutting line about men with honest faces: “They usually come attached to liars.” She reluctantly agree to help him, and when she gets to the frat party, her spirits are considerably lifted. Buffy brought her to the party to cheer her up, but it’s the opportunity to put together a happy couple after her own heartbreak that lifts her spirits.

Her last major scene involves Spike, now neutered by the Initiative and unable to bite her. The setup is so disturbing that it hardly seems appropriate for such a light episode: the way he blasts the stereo and throws her down on the bed is in every sense imaginable a rape scene, and the way the discuss his inability to perform only reinforces the image. But poor Willow is so distraught after Oz’s departure that she actually counsels and reassures Spike, all the while wondering if the problem is with her and not him. All this is played, however, with a blithe tone that walks a fine line between black comedy and inappropriateness. (As is often the case with “Buffy,” the tonal risk pays off.)

One last scene is worth noting. There’s a subplot in which Xander and Giles search for the Initiative soldiers, which leads Xander to a confrontation with Harmony. Xander’s antics are a throwaway subplot, but it’s worth it just to see the epic slap fight between him and Harmony, which is shot and scored like it’s the battle of the century. Nobody does creative irony quite as well as “Buffy”

742:

I empathize with you. I hate when so much work is deleted with no warning whatsoever. Glad you had the courage to continue it.

Thanks MicheBel. After going through three seasons worth, there was no way I wasn't going to continue it, but it took me a while to get it back up and running.

last saturday i was asking what about this thread, specially that at least i have all the seasons...
i got season 2.
good job.

PANGS
Grade: C-

What do you get when you combine “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with unconvincing moral posturing about the plight of Native Americans, a strangely uninspired subplot about Thanksgiving dinner, and a botched reunion? Well, if it’s not the worst episode the show has ever produced, then it might very well be its most misguided.

Let’s start with the episode’s most glaring problem. Namely, did “Buffy” really need to address the wrongs committed against Native Americans? Is this an issue that the characters can really connect with or bring clarity to? “Buffy” is no stranger to social commentary, and has had success when dealing with institutionalized fear (“Gingerbread”), school violence (“Earshot”), and government intervention — what is the Initiative if not a massive failure of foreign policy? But in “Pangs,” the discussions about the rights of a Shumash spirit who stabs, hangs, and relieves victims of their ears feel half-hearted. Willow thinks they should reason with the murdering spirit. Giles plays the role of pragmatist: political correctness be damned, the spirit must be stopped! The upshot: they kill the Native Americans and eat a hearty meal; it’s just like the first Thanksgiving! We haven’t really learned anything or been made to feel anything of value about colonial atrocities, and since the avenging spirits were dispatched so matter-of-factly, why did we even bother?

Meanwhile, Buffy fulfills her life-long quest to ... make Thanksgiving dinner? This is a new character development, and I imagine it’s intended to provide comic counterpoint to the heavy-handed debate, but it just feels weird and tonally awkward. Can’t deal with complex moral dilemmas — time to make pie! What do you mean you didn’t get fresh peas? For the love of God, let the brandy simmer! Where was Iron Chef Buffy in season six when Dawn needed her to bring home more than day-old Doublemeat value meals?

And then there’s the return of Angel. He has returned to issue a vague proclamation: Buffy Is In Danger. Is the Shumash threat so great that it demanded Angel’s return? Of course not, but how else to justify his presence? Certainly not the truth: “Hey, guys, I heard that Sweeps was almost over, so I came as quickly as I could!” If I’m not mistaken, this episode was part of a “Buffy”/”Angel” crossover event, during which “Angel” got the longer end of the stick.

But “Pangs” isn’t a complete waste. Even the worst “Buffy” episode has lines of effortless wit. Among my favorites: “I like my evil like I like my men — evil. You know, straight up, black hat, tied to the train tracks, ‘soon my electro-ray will destroy Metropolis’ bad.” And virtually anything involving Xander’s newfound diseases is mined for gold: “Slaying him? The representative from syphilis votes yea.” Of course, the single best reason for this episode to exist is the priceless line it provided Joss Whedon when writing the Xander-Anya duet for “Once More With Feeling”: “His penis got diseases from a Shumash tribe.” That line is probably more fondly remembered than the episode it was derived from.

In the broader spectrum of television, “Pangs” isn’t all bad, but when an episode of “Buffy” is so tonally scattered (debate, followed by cooking jokes, followed by a battle, followed by Willow, Xander, and Anya in a misplaced sight gag where they charge to the scene on bikes) and so thematically scatterbrained, how can I not take exception?

SOMETHING BLUE
Grade: B

It’s not a classic “Buffy” farce. Writer Tracey Forbes has moments of high wit (“That is the dance of a brave little toaster”) and clever gags (the classic teaser where Buffy wonders why she equates love with fighting right before nonchalantly dusting a vamp), but there she’s not the show’s best wordsmith: “Cars and Buffy are, like, un-mixy things.” Still, with the subtext of turmoil surrounding an increasingly bratty and selfish Willow, and the still-effective comic pairing of Spike and Buffy (“Can I be blind too?” says Xander upon watching them kiss), I rule this episode a success.

It’s funny how the Buffy-Spike canoodling is still funny. Knowing that the two would ultimately engage in an unholy union two seasons later makes even the irony ironic. But I still enjoy the playful reversal: Buffy and Spike trade barbs like schoolchildren and then plan their nuptials, and the priceless moments come when others react to their big news. Giles: “Stop that right now! I can hear the smacking.” Riley: “So, I'm just gonna go far away and be ... away.” Marc Blucas is very good at playing bewilderment, though he comes off as a sap when he’s overly earnest: “You’re gonna teach me,” he says without the slightest bit of irony after Buffy tells him he’s got a lot to learn about women. Riley wouldn’t fully come into his own until Professor Walsh’s betrayal later in the season.

Mostly, I loved Hannigan’s work in this episode. It would have made for a decent Emmy tape if she didn’t already have two home runs (“Wild at Heart” and “New Moon Rising”), because she makes us understand the sadness underneath Willow’s rash behavior, her uncharacteristic selfishness, and her impatience with her friends. Her performance is angry, touching, and funny. And she even makes moving what could have been the episode’s silliest line: “I feel like I've been split down the center and half of me is lost.”

HUSH
Grade: A+

It’s an episode where everything comes together as well as it possibly could, and after repeated viewing, you become keen to all the small details that make this not just a clever concept, but an expertly assembled study in theme, atmosphere, and pacing. It’s an episode so finely and precisely staged that its effect is almost musical.

It begins with a brilliant dream sequence. Joss Whedon has a keen eye for dream sequences: this opening is an unspectacular reality tweaked and then overcome by an increasing feeling of unreality. Professor Walsh’s imagined lecture lays out the episode’s theme:

“So this is what it is.. talking about communication, talking about language — not the same thing. It’s about inspiration. Not the idea, but the moment before the idea when it’s total, when it blossoms in your mind and connects to everything. It’s about the thoughts and experiences that we don’t have a word for.”

“Hush,” therefore, is all about communication, how it is expressed through and obstructed by language. It’s about the limitations of the words we say, and the clarity of expression that emerges when the language drops away. Riley approaches Buffy at Walsh’s desk. He holds her and says the eerie words, “Don’t worry. If I kiss you, it’ll make the sun go down.” He does, and it does, and then Buffy is drawn into the hallway where she hears the most haunting rhyme:

Can’t even shout
Can’t even cry
The Gentlemen are coming by
Looking in windows
Knocking on doors
They need to take seven and they might take you
Can’t call to mom
Can’t say a word
You’re gonna die screaming but you won’t be heard ...

Buffy sees the faces of one of the Gentlemen and is startled awake. In just a few minutes, Whedon has set us up for something special, establishing a surreal, dreamlike tone, sowing the seeds of his ideas about communication, and introduces one of the best one-shot villains in “Buffy” history.

Following this opener is Whedon’s first demonstration of the futility of language. Buffy and Riley attempt to make a connection, but are hindered by their mutual deceit: they have a variation of the same job but can’t tell each other about it. He tries to kiss her, and the moment is broken by more words. “Fortune favors the brave,” mopes Buffy as she walks away.

The next demonstration: Anya and Xander attempt to discuss their relationship. She speaks seriously, he makes jokes for lack of anything else to say. He doesn’t know how to express his feelings for her in words, and they’re left in limbo.

When the Gentlemen arrive, Whedon builds the tension slowly. Something is awry and we’re not sure what. As Buffy walks to the bathroom to brush her teeth, a girl walks by her, clearly distraught, but about what? Buffy says “Good morning” to Willow, and they quickly realize their voices have gone. The great score by Christophe Beck expresses their anxiety, and then a succession of scenes shows us how the panic has spread throughout Sunnydale: a frantic Xander, a tense Riley, and a brilliant moment in which a shattering glass causes everyone in a room to jump.

The scenes chronicling the first day have a gradual, uneasy tension. Whedon sets the scene with slow, lurking camera movements — wary and anxious. And then comes the resolution of a miscommunication: Riley and Buffy, without their words to get in the way, console each other and then kiss.

The action intensifies in the second night, and again I must highlight Christophe Beck’s score. He won an Emmy for scoring “Becoming, Part I” from the second season, but he was robbed of a nomination for his exceptional work in “Hush,” in which it is largely placed on his shoulders to express the tension of the characters and the frightfulness of the Gentlemen. In the second night, his composition soars, and it’s music that would be worthy of Oscar consideration, let alone Emmy consideration.

We get a string of great scene after great scene. There’s the perfectly timed battle in which Buffy and Riley raise their weapons to each other, and you can almost hear the dozens of “What the ...?” questions rattling around their heads; in silence, they’ve betrayed their identities the way they feared they would in words. In another, Anya finds out how Xander really feels about her when he mistakenly believes that Spike has bitten her and thrashes him. There’s the hilarious scene where Giles explains the Gentlemen’s plot to the Scooby gang — the most priceless moment: Buffy gestures the act of stabbing, and the other Scoobies mistake the gesture for something else entirely.

Later, Willow and Tara run away from the Gentlemen. (The chase begins with a great Silence of the Lambs-esque mislead in which we believe that it is Willow who is opening the door for Tara, but it is one of the Gentlemen holding a human heart.) When they reach a dead end, there is a graceful, sensual motion in which Tara takes her hand. Their heads snap towards the vending machine, which is hurled against the door. This too is an extension of the theme: shy Tara was previously unable to speak up during the Wicca meeting, but in one electric moment in the silence, her power rises up to the surface.

The Gentlemen are defeated, in the catharsis of Buffy’s scream. She screams to defeat them, but I think she would scream just because she can; as she once said in the episode “Earshot,” the silence truly has been deafening. Afterwards, the episode’s stories are resolved (Giles and Olivia break up) and others are begun (Willow and Tara’s romance begins). And the episode ends with as perfect a moment as you could imagine. Having seen each other’s secret lives, Riley says to Buffy, “I guess we have to talk.”

In response, neither of them says a word.

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DOOMED
Grade: B

A pretty good episode about Buffy’s insecurity. She’s been through the romantic ringer after Angel loved her, tried to kill her, loved her again, and then dumped her over the last two seasons. Her reluctance to hook up with Danger Boyfriend, Second Edition leads to a few well written scenes between her and Riley. I’m partial to the dialogue in their first scene, where he tells her that he can’t see any scars on her after their battle in “Hush.” “You’re not looking close enough,” she replies. Another great line follows his assurance to her that he’s a normal guy: “Maybe by this town’s standards, but I’m not grading on a curve.”

That insecurity brings her right back to high school, where she battles a trio of demons that look to destroy the world. “Again!?” complain Willow and Xander, and when even the script cops to shortcomings in the story like that, you know something’s wrong. The Vahrall demons are a rather perfunctory creation, and the show could have done more with the return to high school: revisiting old demons in the remains of Sunnydale High is a good metaphor, and surely worth more than just one scene and a quick battle.

Also worthwhile is Spike’s inability to cope with being neutered. I liked the way he grins after accusing Xander and Willow of being worthless lackeys; he can’t hurt anyone physically, but he can still get his kicks inflicting psychological, emotional violence, which he would do later in the season at the behest of big bad Adam.

A NEW MAN
Grade: B+

This perceptive mid-life crisis episode casts the spotlight on Giles, and watching Anthony Stewart Head closely, I’m more and more impressed with the way he can communicate yearning and pain underneath even blithe comedy. He elevates this farcical episode into a true character study of a man whose obsolescence is becoming more and more clear to him.

The episode is smartly written. There is a gulf growing between man of leisure Giles and the Scoobies whose lives move ever forward, and it’s well established. During Buffy’s surprise party, the younger characters are insensitive without even knowing it:

quote:

GILES: Perhaps we should have invited Professor Walsh to the party?
BUFFY: Oh, no! I mean, she's like forty. She's got better things to do than hang out with a bunch of kids.

A later talk with Professor Walsh is also layered. Giles sings Buffy’s praises without realizing that she knows more about Buffy’s life than he does at the moment. We see his heart sink when Professor Walsh talks about Buffy’s absent father figure. It’s possible that Walsh is unaware of the role Giles has played in Buffy’s life, but there’s a cold directness to her comments that suggests otherwise. She tears Giles down by doing something worse than insulting Buffy — she accuses him of failing Buffy.

When Ethan Rayne is re-introduced — “A New Man” concludes what I call “The Ethan Rayne Trilogy of Mischief,” following “Halloween” and “Band Candy” — in the clever way that “Buffy” is great at, overturning an old cliche: A villain delivers an ominous monologue for the act break. But Giles overhears and ruins Ethan’s dramatic moment:

quote:

GILES: Is someone in here?
ETHAN: Oh, bugger! I thought you'd gone!

The Giles rampage is good for a laugh, though the heavy makeup obscures the nuance in Head’s performance. The shock of waking up a demon; the glorious, petty revenge of scaring the bejeezus out of the condescending Professor Walsh — funny stuff. But it’s at the end, where Giles gives Buffy a much needed heart-to-heart about her involvement with the Initiative, that the episode gives us its strongest payoff: Giles has been taken for granted, but not as unimportant as he feared.

There’s another important milestone in this episode: the beginning of the end of the Buffy-Riley relationship. I know: It’s early yet and the couple hasn’t even consummated the relationship. But Riley is visibly sunken when Buffy kicks him clear across the room. It goes deeper than a mild bruising of his ego. Riley, who relishes the macho heroism of demon hunting, is emasculated; the strapping hero realizes that Buffy is not the damsel — she is the real hero. In season five, the writing of their breakup suggested that it was Buffy who drifted away, not appreciating him or making him important enough in her life, but I have always disagreed with that. The fact is, Riley never felt important enough to Buffy after finding out she was the Slayer. It wasn’t her neglect, it was his insecurity.

But that’s just me.

As a final note, who doesn’t roll their eyes along with Professor Walsh when Riley says of Buffy, “She is the truest soul I've ever known.” She replies, “Lord, spare me college boys in love!” Amen to that, sister!

THE I IN TEAM
Grade: A-

“The I in Team” seems mostly like a setup episode, building to Riley’s defection from the Initiative and ushering in the Adam era, but it’s actually a fine piece of dramatic storytelling in its own right. Surprisingly so — I didn’t remember this episode being this good.

This is the best episode for developing the Riley-Walsh relationship — fitting since Walsh gets skewered at episode’s end. But mostly we get our insights from her end of the story, in the stern disapproval and cautious mistrust she directs towards Buffy; protecting her project seems secondary to preserving her bond with her surrogate son, Riley. The obedient son has met a girl and is beginning to question his mother’s wisdom; that Buffy threatens the security of her pet project is almost beyond the point. It’s poetic, then, when her other son, the grotesque hybrid Adam, is the one who finally kills her, concluding the chilling act with the haunting response, “Mommy?”

The fact that Walsh named her demon spawn Adam offers no shortage of religious undertones; in the perverted Garden of Eden that is the Initiative facility, Professor Walsh is God, and Adam is her warped recreation of man. (Adam later takes his mother’s bent for creation and runs with it.) I guess that makes Riley the metaphorical Eve: He sampled the forbidden fruit when he started dating Buffy.

Speaking of Buffy, how about that sex scene! Set during an odd moment in the story, it is nevertheless elegant in the way it is crosscut with a battle between Buffy, Riley, and a demon being captured by the Initiative. It furthers a theme that has always run through “Buffy”: the conflation of sex and death. It was a factor during the Buffy-Angel roller coaster. That misery/ecstasy dichotomy would strike again later with the Buffy-Spike romance. Is it any wonder Buffy is drawn to so many interoffice romances?

But more shocking than the risque love scene is the brilliant image the follows it: the camera pulls out on a shot of a monitor that is capturing Buffy and Riley’s lustful tryst. It then cuts to Walsh, who is viewing the event with a kind of slow-burning rage. Stoic Walsh isn’t demonstrative when it comes to her emotions, but Lindsay Crouse makes us always keenly aware of the twisted megalomania that lies beneath. She plays subtext better than many actors play text.

Towards the end of the episode is one of the season’s most delicious moments, and it too is superbly staged — props to director James A. Contner. As Walsh breaks the bad news to Riley, we see the image on the monitor behind her shifting. Just out of focus, Buffy is appearing on the screen to rebut Walsh’s phony anguish, and then she delivers a mighty challenge: “If you think that's enough to kill me, you really don't know what a Slayer is. Trust me when I say you're gonna find out.” Riley walks away furiously, and Walsh pleads for him to return, first as a commanding officer (“I order you to stop!”), and then as a mother (“Riley!”). Inspired!

And I haven’t even mentioned the best subplot yet: the increased splintering of the Scooby Gang. We learned of Giles’s alienation in “A New Man,” and “The I in Team” shows us Willow’s distance from the Slayer. In an episode that features rewarding subtlety, Alyson Hannigan excels during her scene at the Bronze with Buffy, who has invited her Initiative friends to join the party. Willow teeters on the edge of understanding, disappointment, and anger. As with Giles in the previous episode, Buffy ignores Willow’s warning that the Initiative might be more dangerous than she believes; foolish Buffy is so enamored of her boyfriend and his cool toys that she’s the last to know. Hannigan is great again later when she apologizes to Tara and then ducks Buffy’s question about being out all night.

Other subplots are less engaging: Xander selling awful dietary bars and Spike having a tracer removed from his back, thought the later is followed by a strong scene early in the episode where Giles’s gratitude is met by Spike’s cold shoulder. But “The I in Team” offers an embarrassment of riches for a setup episode, so what’s to complain about?

GOODBYE IOWA
Grade: B

Strange — this episode is a major development in the Initiative story, but it’s more thematically interesting than dramatically involving. There are a couple of great scenes in this episode, but many more great ideas brewing underneath.

I’ll start with the themes. “The I in Team” suggested a symbolic brotherhood between Professor Walsh’s “children,” Adam and Riley. Apparently, Adam was reading the same script, because he says no less than that he and Riley are brothers in this episode, after inserting a dated-looking floppy disk into his chest (were computers really that primitive as recently as 2000?). He’s been doing research into his origins, since he impaled the one person who knew him forwards and backwards. That research leads to a scene where he gives us some tidy, if transparent exposition:

quote:

ADAM: I'm a kinematically redundant, biomechanical demonoid designed by Maggie Walsh. She called me Adam and I called her mother ... In addition to organic material I'm equipped with GP-2, D-11Infrared Detectors, A Harmonic Decelerator, plus D.C. Servo.
Buffy: She pieced you together from parts of other demons.
ADAM: And man. And machine. Which tells me what I am, but not who I am. Mother wrote things down. Hard data, but also her feelings. That's how I learned that I have a job here. And that she loved me.

What’s more interesting than his physical specs is his inquisitiveness. Previos Big Bads (the Master, the Mayor, Evil Angel) were hellbent on, well, hell. But Adam is more childlike in the way he is exploring the world around him. He doesn’t seem evil, per se, but he was built without a conscience, so if he wants to study the anatomy of a little boy, he simply uses his skewer to rip him apart piece by piece. It’s disturbing because Adam is indifferent; he doesn’t seem to take joy in killing, but he doesn’t give it a whole lot of thought either. And that makes Adam unique among Big Bads; more than Buffy’s other foes, he’s a cerebral villain.

The fact that Adam considers himself a brother to Riley goes to the heart of Riley’s own conflict. The very title of “Goodbye Iowa” indicates the loss of his corn-fed, country-boy innocence. The easy, black-and-white morality of being Hero Army Guy has wasted away, leaving his whole identity thrown into disarray. One of the best moments of the episodes, and possibly Marc Blucas’s best scene on the show, is a pair of scenes that show Riley unfamiliar shades of gray. Emotionally and physically unbalanced from withdrawal, he holds a demon at gunpoint, but the demon, which appears to be a frightened woman, is genuinely frightened. Is she guilty simply by her designation — hostile sub-terrestrial — or is the whole world filled with complex lines of distinction? Is it naive to hold on to such an uncomplicated world view, that We are the good guys and They are the bad guys?

In the great scene that follows, Riley wonders if he is the bad guy, and if Buffy should kill him. When he looks at himself with new eyes, he sees something that is possibly evil, like Adam his symbolic brother.

Those are some great ideas being furthered by an episode that is otherwise just pretty good. There’s a funny little scene between Willow and Tara, but that is so naked about the sex/magic metaphor that we have to roll our eyes:

quote:

WILLOW: I had so much fun the other night. The spells.
TARA: Yeah, that was nice.
WILLOW: I hope you don't think that I just come over for the spells and everything. I mean, I really like just talking and hanging out with you and stuff.
TARA: I know that. But you want to do a spell.
WILLOW: Yeah. But only because it's really important. There's this--
TARA: No. You don't have to explain. I don't mind. Really. I've been, um, thinking about that last spell we did all day.
WILLOW: You have? Well this one should be fun, too.

That has to be the most obvious code for “Let’s have sex” that I’ve ever heard.

A couple of other moments feel dramatically inert. During the infiltration of the Initiative, Buffy and Xander hide behind a corner just as a scientist is conveniently discussing exactly what they want to hear, within earshot. And Adam, though an interesting character, delivers his exposition while pacing back and forth, which isn’t exactly a compelling viewing experience. There are some kinks in “Goodbye Iowa,” but the stage is set for more avenues of thematic exploration.

Wow, this is some pretty deep analysis. Having just watched seasons four through seven, I can’t wait to see your comments going on. I realize the Buffy-Angel arc in season two is brilliantly done, and Harry Groener is probably the greatest villain of the whole show, but I like the later seasons more. Starting with season four, the whole style and look of the show changed. It was lighter, but still great.

And in honor of your analysis-es-ese, I will add my recent effort. For my personal blog, I made a list of my top 15 favorite Buffy episodes, including one line, bit or a dialogue, or something else that made that episode one of my favorites, and you should be able to appreciate them all. I have some obvious choices, but there are some I personally adore because I love the comedy of Buffy, and I’m also an Anya and Andrew fan, easily my two favorite characters. And so far, the four of my episodes you’ve reviewed have all been A+ efforts, so we’re cool for now.

15. “Family” – Season Five
Willow’s girlfriend, Tara, finally becomes one of the gang.
Tara’s Father: We are her blood kin. Who the hell are you?
Buffy: We’re family.

14. “Conversations with Dead People” – Season Seven
The beautiful song playing over the brilliantly put together opening and closing scenes.

13. “Lie to Me” – Season Two
The closing dialogue after Buffy has to kill a close friend who turned into a vampire.
Buffy: Does it ever get easy?
Giles: You mean life?
Buffy: Yeah. Does it get easy?
Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy: Lie to me.
Giles: Yes, it’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.

12. “Triangle” – Season Five
Every single line of Olaf’s “insane troll logic,” including:
---You do well to flee, townspeople! I will pillage your lands and dwellings! I will burn your crops and make merry sport with your more attractive daughters!
---Barmaid! Bring me stronger ale, and some plump, succulent babies to eat.
---I could be out pillaging, devouring babies, making merry with the local virgins, but instead, I had to come all the way back here to kill you.

11. “Tabula Rasa” – Season Six
All the wacky hijinx that ensue when everyone loses their memories, such as Spike thinking he’s Giles’ son, Randy.
Spike: Randy Giles? Why not just call me ‘Horny Giles,’ or ‘Desperate for a Shag Giles’? I knew there was a reason I hated you!

10. “Who Are You?” – Season Four
The evil slayer Faith, in Buffy’s body, coming to the realization that she has to stop the vampires from killing innocent people “Because it’s wrong.”

9. “Earshot” – Season Three
Postponed for several months because of Columbine, Jonathan is in the school’s clock tower with a gun when Buffy intervenes, only to find out the truth.
Jonathan: I came up here to kill myself.

8. “Storyteller” – Season Seven
My favorite character in the whole Buffy-verse, Andrew, finally got his own episode, and it’s as awkward and hilarious as he is.
Andrew: Come with me now, if you will, gentle viewers. Join me on a new voyage of the mind, a little tale I like to call ‘Buffy, A Slayer of the Vampyres.’

7. “Restless” – Season Four
The cheese man.

6. “Selfless” – Season Seven
The callback to “Once More, With Feeling” when Anya sings her brand new song, “Mrs.” Also, this is the first television episode ever written by Drew Goddard, a true genius who has since also written fantastic episodes of “Angel,” “Alias” and “Lost.”

5. “Chosen” – Season Seven
The perfectly triumphant score that plays as a stabbed Buffy summons her last ounce of strength to unleash death on all the ubervamps in the Hellmouth.

4. “Becoming, Parts 1 and 2” – Season Two
The scene where Buffy finally tells her mother, Joyce, who she really is.
Buffy: I told you, I’m a Vampire Slayer.
Joyce: Well, I just don’t accept that!
Buffy: Open your eyes, mom. What do you think has been going on for the past two years? The fights, the weird occurrences. How many times have you washed blood out of my clothing, and you still haven’t figured it out?
Joyce: Well, it stops now!
Buffy: No, it doesn’t stop! It never stops! Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you have any idea how lonely it is, how dangerous? I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or, God, even studying! But I have to save the world … again.

3. “Hush” – Season Four
I’d quote dialogue, but there’s none for about 30 minutes of this episode as everyone in Sunnydale lose their voices, which leads to an amazingly scary silent movie-like episode which everyone needs to watch simply to understand how great television can be, even without talking.

2. “Once More, With Feeling” – Season Six
It’s the musical episode. Eleven fantastic songs written and composed by Joss Whedon and sung by the cast. If you understand and love musicals, then you will truly get this episode. There are themes of love, reprises, choreography, and just insanely perfect songs, all of which you will memorize and sing along with every subsequent time you watch it.

1. “The Body” – Season Five
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this is the single best episode of television I’ve ever seen. In his audio commentary, Joss Whedon talks about wanting to focus on the almost boring hours immediately following a tragic death. There’s no great catharsis, there’s no escape, you’re just there. He uses long takes, no score and each act takes place at a single location so that the viewer isn’t allowed the freedom of getting away from the horror of the death. The true genius lies in the first act. For about fifteen minutes, it’s just Buffy, and Sarah Michelle Gellar is heartbreaking