Covering from “Out of My Mind” to “Family,” in which I was sorely tempted just to go Out. For. A. Walk. … Bitch.
What
a study these three make.
In “Out of My Mind,” we attempt to
give something of consequence to the Initiative while tying off season 4 and
giving Riley a story, only to have Spike steal it right out from under him.
In “No Place Like Home,” some of the
Dawn situation is explained, which means it’s mostly exposition.
And in “Family,” we get a Tara
episode which is actually quite sweet, but also just so hilariously obvious
with its allegory, it becomes a distraction.
There is precious little to say
about “Out of My Mind”—believe me—but it’s…meh, so very rote. And nonsensical. Said
it before, I’ll say it again here now, tight plotting has never been the show’s
foremost concern, but the show is getting less and less adept at hiding that. I
didn’t mention it talking about “The Replacement” because I love it so, but the
way it’s assembled makes it appear that the two Xanders are confronting each
other, including wrestling for Anya’s gun, in parallel to Willow arriving
at Giles’, everyone gradually piecing together what is going on, and then
driving to the new apartment, arriving just as the wrestling for the gun ends—indeed,
the gun wrestling seems to span the entire drive from whatever part of town
Giles’ lives in to whatever part of town the new apartment is in. Obviously, we
aren’t meant to think these events actually are occurring parallel, indeed, the
episode is fun and good enough that I don’t think it seems especially odd until
you note this issue in other episodes. But “Out of My Mind” isn’t so lucky, so
the absurdity of the Initiative doctor convincingly beginning and completing
brain surgery, even a fake one, while Riley is on the very brink of death (and
also without mussing Spike’s hair) sticks out quite a bit.
Like I noted, this is a Riley story
that Spike essentially steals—Riley may not be right that Buffy, the vampire
Slayer, doesn’t love him, but Buffy the
Vampire Slayer sure doesn’t. He’s not aware that the show isn’t terribly
interested in actual working relationships, but he’s very aware his only
utility is as the muscle, and his depowering by the episode’s end means his
days are numbered. Of less numbered days is Spike, even though the episode’s
events lead Buffy to resolve it’s time for him to die, and we never really gain
an understanding of what stays her hand. For Spike’s part, though, we learn
that his hate for the Slayer is actually much more of a love/hate, which is the
huge twist and development that overshadows everything else in the episode (except
arguably for Joyce’s blackout), since it’s the first real step toward Spike
becoming a good guy (even if that may not have been apparent at the time).
Something like this had to happen if Spike was still going to be a presence on
the show, and I’m of many minds about it, which can probably be saved for
later. Suffice to say for now the episode’s best bits are Giles preparing for
his grand opening, the Spike stuff when you can ignore the absurdity of the
logistics (in particular his “make your neck my chalice” speech, right before
tumbling into a grave), and Xander’s attempt to explain Riley’s plight under
the thin pretext of talking about a friend only to have Anya assume he’s using
the even thinner pretext of talking about a “friend” and running with it so she’s
talking about her “friend” who actually does really feel for that “friend” of
Xander’s, so his “friend” shouldn’t be concerned. Anyway.
Eventually, the mystery of Dawn had
to be solved, and it’s a big enough mystery it deserved a whole episode, which
was going to be a lot of exposition. And while “No Place Like Home” tries to
hide that and liven things up with a trippy trance, but if you already know
Dawn’s deal, there isn’t a lot to get all jazzed about except for all the
business with Giles’ grand opening.
I don’t particularly hate the Dawn
story. Truth be told, it’s got problems, but I actually quite like it for the
Dickian Blade Runner questions about
memory and reality and he interplay between the two the story poses, even if
the show doesn’t exactly spend a lot of time actually asking them. Mostly that’s
because Buffy doesn’t seem to think they’re particularly worth asking, and that’s
actually something of a credit to her character—once she learns Dawn is
innocent and vulnerable, she throws herself into protecting Dawn without
question, like it isn’t something she should question. That resolve gives the episode
at least a little bit of a shine outside the fun of the Magic Box.
Oh yeah, we meet Glory. I’ll go on
about why Glory sucks later.
Of these, the best is unquestionably
“Family,” Tara’s big episode. Tara’s been around for a bit, but precious little
is known about her, which gets acknowledged in a very meta exchange between
Buffy and Xander. And I quite like the story we get here to gain a firmer
understanding of her. Mostly. Basically, I really like it, but it’s comically
unsubtle about Tara’s family (including Academy Award Nominee Amy Adams!) being
a bunch of judgmental, small-minded rednecks who hate them homosexuals. One of
them is even Kevin Rankin, the master of small-minded rednecks and white
supremacists!
What I know about how Willow and
Tara went down (heh) is that while the network was ok with them being a couple,
they were not ok with overt displays and intimations of physical affection
between the two—an especially galling double standard given how, know what,
just go watch fucking “Where the Wild Things Are” to see why it’s a galling
double standard. Thus, in response, we got the barely subtextual magic scenes
where, say, they hold hands and Willow gets all sweaty and panty and gasps as
she arches her back before we flash to white. So, yeah, magic was obviously a
metaphor for sex, specifically lesbian sex (it’s not a coincidence, I don’t
think, that Giles seems less and less adept at magic as season 4 moved deeper
in this direction), and we all knew it. Thus, had Tara’s family simply been a repressive
bunch who told their young girls they need to stick around in case they turn
into demons, which actually was just magic, we’d all get what was going on.
There wasn’t a need to really punctuate the point, especially since making the Maclays
(“Mr,” Donny, and Cousin Beth all came down in the camper) a bunch of
Phelps-proxies going on about the sorts of lifestyles that can be lived in
sinful big city California punctuates it with seven exclamation points.
Still, just because I prefer a
little more grace and subtlety in my didacticism doesn’t mean “Family” isn’t a
sweet episode. I like Tara, even if as Buffy and Xander note, not much is know
about her. We’re kindred in our habit of making poorly understood arcane
references (though admittedly I fall closer to Anya’s IDGAF end of this
spectrum). Her obvious terror and resurging awkwardness (complete with stutter)
in the face of her cartoonish relations is plaintive and sad, and her misguided
spell to hide what she thinks she should fear about herself aligns her with the
long Buffy tradition of poor choices
made out of fear and pain, while her instant reversal aligns her with the far
more sympathetic figures of the show. Buffy and the rest of the gang rally
around Willow’s special lady friend and do the Doctor’s recent “Do you think I
care for you so little betraying me would make a difference” bit, which never
fails to be moving (though it may have been more effective if the Maclays weren’t
such laughable bigots), and Spike gets to save the day through a cunning punch
(he says he doesn’t care what happens, but as we’ll see soon, you may at times
have to separate Spike’s posture from his feelings). Perfect? No. But not too
far from it.
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