Herewith my weekly “Buffy” comment (which will annoy the crap out of my daughter, Gwen, who claims that all I ever discuss on this log is “Buffy.” Perhap I should be talking about something that truly interests her, like…her. Okay. She’s got a job interview at New England Comics this Thursday. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Happy, Gwen?)
Last night’s was the weakest entry this season…although even a weak entry put it head and shoulders above many from last season. It’s what I call a Placemarker episode: It endeavors to entertain and give some vague tie-ins with the overall season arc without advancing either the “big-bad” arc or the character arcs too much. They do a number of those each year, particularly early in the season. “Bad Eggs” is an off-hand example from season 2. The only real standouts of that type are usually the Halloween episodes.
So for a placemarker it wasn’t bad. But it dragged. The pacing was off; it suffered from an occasional lapse one sees in the series, wherein the true subject matter of the episode doesn’t make itself known until the end of the first act. Nothing was accomplished in the teaser, and most of the first act was dedicated to telling us what we’ve already known for several episodes: Buffy is working as a counselor. The array of students would have been better and funnier compressed to a fast montage about thirty seconds long. Having Cassie come in and announce that she was going to die next Friday was a nice punch; *that* should have been the teaser, and you go from there.
Next week’s with Anya looks intriguing, and also seems to be addressing my questions regarding Anya’s soul. I had speculated that Buffy could kill Anya since she’s now a souless demon…but if she was souless, how could her marriage to Xander have ever worked? And if she’s not souless, then why was she never agonized over all she’d done, like Angel and Spike? Perhaps we’ll find out. Also perhaps next week has the rumored “Anya sings” flashback.
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