Day: September 24, 2002

How could I have been so dense.

I bet Buffy’s dealing with the First. The primary evil that lurked around below Sunnydale, had an assortment of eyeless priests working for it, and drove Angel nuts back in “Amends” by shifting into the forms of various people he’d killed, including Jenny Calendar. After introducing the concept of the First back in season #3, we haven’t heard boo about it since then.

So either Whedon is repeating himself by having a Big Bad with the exact same MO…or it’s the same evil entity that’s been laying low since shortly before the destruction of the school.

We’ll see.

PAD

Buffy may have missed out on being Homecoming queen years ago, but that pales in comparison to the welcome homecoming of the new season. With as much lack of subtlety as we saw the miseries of adulthood hammered home upon our heroes (so much so that they forgot to *be* heroes most of the time), so too was there no subtlety in letting the fans known that all is well (i.e., evil) in Sunnydale once again. Except in the latter case it could not have been more welcome.

The instant I heard there was a new principal, I thought, “Bet he’s black.” There hasn’t been an ongoing black character since Mr. Trick, and he was only in the first half of season 3. But that was the only truly predictable aspect of the episode. Spike’s return couldn’t have been more perfectly timed, all manner of plot threads were put into place, and I feel truly sorry for anyone who is a newcomer because they couldn’t begin to appreciate the cameo heaven of the last two minutes. Even the charming comic book injoke of Willow’s witch teacher being “Miss Harkness” (an impossible-to-ignore reference to Marvel’s witch in residence, Agatha Harkness) showed that Whedon’s sensibilities were firmly back in place.

Welcome home, Buffy and Co. We missed you last year. Glad you’re back.

PAD

As a number of people pointed out, yesterday was my birthday.

I don’t make a big deal of it. Actually, I generally do my best to ignore it. All I do is reflect on people who should be celebrating birthdays, but aren’t around to do so, and then I wonder why I’m here and they’re gone, and then I just get even more depressed. On the up side, there’s cake at the end of the day to drown the depression in, so I suppose it always works out.

PAD