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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: All the Way

Giles: "Mist... cemetery... Halloween... should end well..."

What is it with Summers women and vamps? Even Joyce liked Dracula.

Dawn has a mini-coming of age episode – her first kiss and her first slay, and it's even the same guy. Michelle T. was good, as usual, but most of the prank stuff and the giggly teen stuff, well, maybe I would have liked it more if I was fifteen, too.

Giles had almost all the good lines in this one and managed to do some cool slaying, and he didn't even get knocked out, although he did get bashed. Could that be because this is probably one of his final episodes? *sigh*

Xander finally announced his engagement to Anya. (Giles told him: "Anya is a wonderful former vengeance demon. I'm sure you'll spend many years of non-hell-dimensional bliss." Can you say, tongue-in-cheek?) Anya was a lot of fun in this one, while Xander mostly looked sick as the conversation drifted to buying houses, planning babies, June weddings, and buying new cars. I don't sense a happy resolution to this situation.

Speaking of which, the Willow/Tara relationship is in serious trouble. Willow is addicted to magic, and Tara isn't into co-dependency. I don't sense a happy resolution here either, especially after that spell Willow pulled on Tara at the end. Very bad Willow, no biscuit.

Loved the rather suggestive exchanges between Buffy and Spike, like:

Buffy: "Bell. Neck. Look into it."
Spike: "Come with a nice leather collar, does it?"

...and that whole rough and tumble thing. Buffy's eyes got really big; she thought at first that he was making a rowdy pass, didn't she?

Bits and pieces:

— Were the fight scenes more intense than usual, or was it me?

— We finally found out why Giles cleans his glasses.

— I felt bad for that poor, "crazy" old man with the Rice Krispies treats.

— What's with Dawn's klepto streak? She took a pair of earrings a bunch of episodes ago, too.


Quotes:

Anya: "Buy one eyeball, get the second one free!"

Dawn: "So what are you supposed to be?"
Anya: "An angel."
Dawn: "Oh. Shouldn't you have wings?"
Anya: "Oh no, this is a special kind of angel called a Charlie. We don't have wings, we just skate around with perfect hair fighting crime."

Spike: "Feel like a bit of the rough and tumble?"
Buffy: "What?"
Spike: "Me ... you... Patrolling? Hello?"
Buffy: "Oh. Uh ... I should stay. Maybe tomorrow."
Spike: "It's not like I don't already have plans. Great Pumpkin's on in twenty."

Buffy: "What happened to Xander?"
Giles: "He kept poking me with his hook. I sent him over to charmed objects. With any luck he'll poke the wrong one and end up in an alternative dimension inhabited by a 50-foot Giles that squishes annoying teeny pirates."

Giles: "Buffy, you've been patrolling every night this week. Besides, it's Halloween, it's the one time of the year that supernatural threats give it a well-deserved rest. As should you."
Buffy: "Yeah, what about costumes that take over your personality? Or wee little Irish fear-demon-y thingies?"
Giles: "Yes, well, if anything calamitous should happen, history suggests it'll happen to one of us."

Giles: "Brooms all around, then."
Willow: "Or I could whip up a jaunty self-cleaning incantation, it'll be like Fantasia."
Giles: "We all know how splendidly that turned out for Mickey."
Willow: "I think I'm a little more adept than a cartoon mouse."
Tara: "And you have more fingers, which is good, 'cause there's no need to wear those big white gloves to overcompensate."

Dawn: "You do this every night?"
Anya: "Every time I close out the cash register. The dance of capitalist superiority."

Buffy: "Did you know about this?"
Giles: "No. Unless I blocked it from my memory, much as I will Xander's vigorous use of his tongue."

Dawn: "He's okay."
Janice: "Ho-hum okay, or like ... 'oh my god I think I'm gonna pee my pants' okay?"
Dawn: "Pee."

Giles: "Ah. Rupert is an exceptionally strong name."
Anya: "Yeah, if we want our progeny to eat paste and have their lunch money stolen."

This wasn't a bad episode, but it wasn't great, either. Maybe it just suffers in comparison to the other two Buffy Halloween episodes. Two out of four stakes, and I absolutely can't wait for the musical episode next week,

Billie
---
Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.

4 comments:

  1. This is a fun light episode. It's a mediocre story for Dawn, but I like all the interactions among the principal characters. Anya is gorgeous and the Dance of Capitalist Superiority is one of the reasons she is such a delightful character to watch.

    It doesn't make sense that the vampire would press his chest against Dawn's pencil. The fight scene was cool, though.

    Giles and Xander had a scene together. There aren't a lot of those.

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  2. AAAARGH NO THE LIP-SMACKING, I did not need to see such an extended scene of baby Dawn kissing. I'm going back to Angel, life's too short

    "-- Were the fight scenes more intense than usual, or was it me?"
    They were! I really appreciated that. You'd think I'd get a little over them by now. So while it was the least of the Halloween episodes it doesn't completely warrant a skip (and with his 2nd leave building up, every little scene with Giles matters to me).

    I actually had some minor complaint for this season about Tara being too much Willow's right-hand man (specifically concerning the discussion around Buffy's resurrection and whether they should keep at it) but with this episode's development her lack of resistance is going to be much easier to buy. And jesus Willow, it was already on-the-nose bad even before you decided to make her forget the little spat at the end.

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  3. For my taste, the quoted bit of Buffy & Spike in the Magic Box basement ends one line too soon.
    As much fun as Buffy's facial reaction to the "rough and tumble" suggestion is, my favorite line in that scene still is Buffy's observation "So much easier to talk to when he was trying to kill me."

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  4. Those poor vampire boys, they really were cruisin’ for a smack down. Wasted their whole afterlife by picking on the slayer’s sister.

    Billie, you wrote, “What is it with Summers women and vamps? Even Joyce liked Dracula.” Aren’t all women supposed to be drawn to a vampire when they unleash their dark charm? Men too, I guess. I’ve always wondered if that’s true in the Buffyverse. Seems randomly applied.

    This was such a fun episode. I love Buffy & Spike in the basement. Spike in a leather collar with a bell, Spike’s knowledge of mandrake root, Buffy’s leap of thought to the wrong use of “rough & tumble.” It was all charged with Marsters/Gellar electricity. Yep, fun.

    Xander & Anya finally made the announcement. Buffy’s, “What? She’s 15 and my sister so don’t eve—- Oh,” screamed foreshadowing all the way to the comics. I’m very impressed if it was intentional!

    I liked how Dawn in possible trouble galvanized everyone to action. I liked how familiar Buffy was with Spike’s crypt, to head straight to his weapons chest after bursting into his “uncivilized” dwelling.
    Buffy: We have to find her. (Opens the weapons chest)
    Spike: I don’t think she’s in there.

    The ring of car headlights showed there were more vamps out on Halloween than Giles thought. But wow, Giles brought it! That fight was one of the best I’ve seen him in. Vamps didn’t have a chance with Giles, Spike, Buffy & even Dawn.

    Buffy actually sincerely told Spike, “good fight,” and, dare I say it, gazed rather fondly after him as he left.

    Tara & Willow, I think, were the only ones for whom Halloween ended badly. (Except the vamps. And maybe Dawn.)

    And now I think I’ll go listen to James singing “Civilized Man,” with Ghost of the Robot. Thanks, Buffy. :)

    ReplyDelete

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