Covering
from “Shadow” to “Into the Woods,” in which well, that’s one way for the show
to deal with the Riley situation.
Another rather dubious string of three. “Shadow” exists mainly to give us more time with Glory, which, ugh. “Listening to Fear” introduces an element I find really bothersome. And “Into the Woods” is sort of okay, but also perhaps a harbinger of issues to come. When I speak of the weird affection I hold for this season, I’m generally not talking about this stretch here.
I mean, there’s hardly anything to “Shadow,”
AKA “The One Where Glory Makes a Big Snake,” but the snake isn’t even Mayor
big. Mostly, it’s about slowly developing the Joyce story. Very slowly, with a
deliberation that feels true to life, but at a pace wholly new to the show
given the significance, and one that isn’t a particularly good fit. Most of the
larger storylines proceed incrementally, but they did so in the background of or
alongside a dominant single episode adventure. “Shadow,” though, crams in both
larger storylines when neither is in the mood to proceed all that much. In the
case of Joyce’s tumor, well, I won’t criticize the choice to have Buffy grapple
with that uncertainty for a bit while learning that there isn’t a magical cure
for a purely medical condition. However, this is also a big Glory showcase, and
one in which we learn practically nothing of note. Tara says she might be
really, really old, hence their problems researching her (or it could be that
they have nothing to go on, as Giles noted several episodes ago), we learn she’s
powerful which we already knew, she has some crusty minion beasts who fawn over
her to excess, and she’s real, real, real
fucking annoying, and that’s it. There’s some overly-obvious talk of Buffy
needing a problem she can beat up, and then the snake conveniently shows up,
she chases it down, kills it, and keeps beating it, a moment that fails to
resonate, either because it is so obvious and telegraphed, or because the snake
is so abrupt, or both. Whatever.
All three of these episodes form
something of a medical melodrama, which is interesting, but not something the
show feels particularly well-equipped to handle and this becomes most apparent
in “Listening to Fear,” which focuses on perhaps the season’s most poorly
thought-out element, the crazy people. There’s a “rash of mental illness”
(pretty sure that’s a direct quote) in Sunnydale, you see, except here’s the
problem—from their word salad, to their sudden onset, to their resistance to
all forms of treatment, to their uncanny ability to see something amiss about
Dawn’s existence, they don’t act in any way, shape, or form like someone with
mental illness, and their theatricality and inauthenticity stands out like the
sorest of thumbs in the middle of everyone waiting pensively in hospital
waiting rooms to get diagnoses. Increasingly prominent presence Ben the Intern,
representative of the medical establishment, rather dismissively says something
about how there are no beds in the psych ward, so people are being sent home,
as if people going overnight from fully functioning and competent people to the
absurdly raving lunatics we see here was no big. Granted, Ben has some reason
to treat it as though it were no big, but there’s no indication that anyone,
anywhere thinks a sudden plague of “mental illness” that doesn’t look like
anything in the DSM-IV-TR is worth noting. This gives the show a very ugly vibe,
like it believes crazy people just do things because they’re crazy, very much
including Joyce, which robs much, if not all, of the possible resonance of the
goings on in the Summers’ home of their power. Buffy and Dawn aren’t dealing
with their mother losing her facilities, they’re dealing with their mother
becoming a very silly trope of a crazy person. The Queller, at least, looks
better than the snake, though its design doesn’t led well to fights.
If Riley was feeling a bit
extraneous all season, the drama of Joyce’s affliction seals that sense,
particularly when he has to learn Joyce is in the hospital from Spike, and that
sense takes over “Into the Woods” once its declared surgery has led Joyce out
of them. There isn’t any sort of supernatural threat in the episode, beyond a
bit of world-building in the form of vampire flop houses where willing humans,
including Riley, let themselves be fed upon. As such, there’s a lot of talking
in this episode, and the movement occurs in a series of heart-to-hear talks
that vary in their degree of histrionics and melodrama, but aren’t actually all
that bad, even if there is some really damn cheap ploys for shocks leading into
commercial breaks—for example, Riley’s fake staking of Spike is even more
baffling than Buffy letting him live after “Out of My Mind.” The aftermath,
however, is a nice little scene where the two share a drink as commiserate over
how they’ve been differently spurned by love. Riley’s choice to let a vampire
feed off him only makes sense when he talks it through with Buffy (though “makes
sense” is a bit generous). After several episodes of gentle nudging, Xander
comes right out and says what she needs to hear.
Xander turns out to be the unlikely
hero of “Into the Woods.” Plenty assert that his growth stops at “The
Replacement,” and while his role here might not constitute growth to all, I do
think it’s a worthy affirmation of his growing maturity, as he sees what Buffy
is about to lose, intervenes, and bears her rebukes long enough to get his
point across. More importantly, though, while it seems over the course of the
episode his dedication to fixing Buffy’s relationship is about to cost him his
own, he instead gives us the last heart-to-heart of the episode, going to Anya
and telling her exactly what she means to him and why he won’t take her for
granted.
But that’s the last heart-to-heart
of the episode. Buffy made up her mind a few seconds too late.
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