"Impulsive? Do you remember my ex, the vampire? I slept with him. He lost his soul. Now my boyfriend's gone forever, and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends. The next impulsive decision I make will involve my choice of dentures." - Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy in "I Only Have Eyes For You"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Second Season DVD Review
By Marlo Serritella
As I once again embark on the mission of bringing appreciation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the masses (or perhaps to my three friends reading this review), it occurs to me that fanatics such as myself have a difficult time explaining our love of the show. This rabid devotion became all the more apparent as I listened to one of the DVD interviews with Joss Whedon, creator of BtVS and all-around superman. The interview goes something like this: something insightful, something witty, something genius and then, something strange. Whedon sort of casually mentions that the show is a work of fiction. Huh, fiction? I thought to myself. The show is fiction? It's not real? I know what you're thinking because I thought the same thing myself-clearly, I'm crazy. But I realized that the reason I had such a strong reaction to the notion of the show being a work of fiction is that the emotions Buffy evokes are always very real. The pain of falling for the exactly wrong person, longing to re-invent yourself, enduring great loss, regretting your youthful days of raising hell-beasts-very real. Ok, maybe not that last one.
For those of you just joining us, when last we left her in Season One, our hero had just vanquished the bad guy. I won't belittle the greatness of the show by attempting to stereotype the cast of characters. However, for the sake of getting you up to speed, I will short-hand some important points about the Slayer and her Slayerettes. Buffy Summers (the sublime Sarah Michelle Gellar) is the "chosen one." She alone will stand against the vampires and the forces of evil, "yada, yada, yada" ("Surprise"). Angel (David Boreanaz), also known as Angelus from his evil days, is the tortured vampire cursed with a soul who aids Buffy in fighting the good fight and loves her from the first time she drop kicks him. Xander (Nicholas Brendon)-the unattractive, awkward boy portrayed by an actor who is neither unattractive nor awkward-once served as treasurer of the "We Hate Cordelia Club" and still nurses a long-time crush on Buffy. Willow (Alyson Hannigan), the brainy, geeky childhood best friend of Xander and current best friend to Buffy learns to work the dark mojo and relinquishes years of unrequited love of Xander for love of the pint-sized werewolf named Oz (Seth Green). Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), begins slightly more on the periphery of the Scooby gang and fills the role of ridiculously pretty, popular girl with more substance than might first appear who ends up smooching in the broom closet with Xander. Rupert Giles (Anthony Head), librarian accused by Buffy of wearing tweed diapers as a child and harboring bitterness that school didn't include more math, also serves as Watcher over the Slayer in the performance of her sacred duties. Last but not least, we have Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), sweet Sunnydale High computer teacher who's hiding a big ol' secret and falling for a stuffy librarian all in the same tragic moments.
Season Two continues to be true to the mission of the show-portraying true life, only "wonkier," as Whedon puts it. The lessons are still poignant, even if they are packaged in bizarre circumstances. Any second-rate sitcom can make heavy-handed commentary on the same tired, non-controversial moral issues (see, for example, every episode of Blossom). But it takes some kind of mastermind to turn the nightmare of an unwanted step-dad into the nightmare of an unwanted step-dad who's also a killer-robot who wears John Ritter's face ("Ted.") Tell one lie and have one drink at a fraternity party in your world, and you might get grounded; tell one lie and have one drink in Sunnydale, and you might nearly be presented as a sacrifice to a demonic snake god ("Reptile Boy"). Don't be so quick to envy those privileged swim team champs at your high school. Not only do steroids cause depression and headaches; the drugs may also turn the hunky athletes into creatures from the Black Lagoon ("Go Fish"). Betray a true friend, and you best start picking out your funeral suit ("Lie to Me"). Try to be something you're not, and you may literally lose your identity as well as your head ("Halloween"). Suppress your inner fears and insecurities and end up venting with a sledgehammer ("When She was Bad"). Having trouble accepting that your boyfriend needs time to sort out some changes in his life? Well, you better bring a tranquilizer gun when you confront him, because he's a werewolf ("Phases"). Just because vampires and monsters inhabit Buffy's world, doesn't change the fact that the emotion resonates.
But in Whedon's vision, misery also breeds a particular brand of hilarity. With so many television shows-even the good ones-the comedy often just sort of comes in through the front door. Not only can you see the joke coming a mile away, but the actors deliver the lines with such an awareness of how witty they are, that eventually it just gets boring. (I'm not naming names here, they know who they are.) With Buffy, it's more like the funny knocks on the back door or sneaks in through the window. It's often delivered at a lightning fast pace and is so intertwined with some hideous tragedy that you better laugh quickly, lest you miss out on any of it. The humor in Buffy is always wrapped up in the suffering. It's in Xander's dramatic reenactment of Buffy's latest kill using fish sticks. It's in Willow Rosenberg worrying about what her dad will say when he notices all the crucifixes she keeps around. It's in Buffy's complete inability to keep the names of the latest pesky demon straight, (unless of course pulling the sword from the stone heart of "Al Franken" will somehow suck the world into hell, and "Bozo" really is a large mother demon calling her children home). It's in Cordelia trying to express worry about Buffy's health by saying: "we're all concerned about how gross you look" ("Killed by Death"). It's in Angel's version of email (an immolation-o-gram); Giles attempt at shushing someone ("discretion is the better part of valor"); the results of Xander's future career assessment test (prison guard); the politically correct term for vampires (undead American); and a million other phrases, gestures and nuances that I can't possibly do justice without kidnapping all the voting members of the Academy.
The major story arc of the second season involves Buffy and Angel consummating their love and the horror that results. This is another thing that Buffy gets right. Your first love doesn't often leave you with the warm fuzzies. It makes you miserable: "when you kiss me, I want to die" ("Reptile Boy"). It makes you hate yourself. It makes you want to listen to country western music. And that's during the happy phase. There's a reason why they call it your "first" love; there will likely be more to follow. But Buffy feels like all of us did at sixteen in the midst of our first, real romance: "what if I never feel this way again?" ("Surprise"). She may shoulder the burden of being the one girl in all the world chosen to battle evil, but that doesn't mean that she has the life experience to see past the intensity of her feelings for Angel. So Buffy gives in to her desires and sleeps with her beau. Unfortunately, the gypsy curse that restored Angel's soul as a means to punish him hinges on the premise that this soul should serve as a means of constant torment: "you have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done and to care" ("Angel," Season One). One moment of true happiness-one moment when he's not enduring anguish for his sins-and that soul is taken from him. So Buffy loses her virginity and Angel loses his soul. The one thing that makes Angel capable of love is the one thing that will ultimately keep him from love. That is what they call irony-not the black-fly-in-your-Chardonnay irony (which by the way is not at all ironic)-but hard-core-didn't-see-it-coming-going-to-haunt-me-eternally irony. It's that age-old story. Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl get it on. Boy turns into a vengeful, unstoppable killing machine. Sure, maybe your ex didn't hunt down all your friends in dark alleys. But, if you stop to really think about it, when you go back in your memory to the night your great love dumped you/left you/lied to you, is the pain any less intense than if he had also been a homicidal maniac? The world is about to end (again), lives are in danger (again), and Buffy is the only person with the power to stop it (you guessed it, again). Yet, where do we find our hero during all of this? Sobbing on her bed over the loss of her boyfriend. And that's exactly where we'd all be.
What's so startling about Angel's brand of evil is that I'm not sure what's worse-all the blood-sucking or just how downright mean he is. We know from the first season that Angel carved out a path of death and destruction through Europe for a century. As a vampire in his younger days, Angel didn't just kill, maim and torture; he killed, maimed and tortured "with a song in [his] heart" ("Angel," Season One). It wasn't even satisfying enough for him to turn a pure, sweet and chaste village girl into a vampire on the day she took her holy orders; he made sure to kill her entire family and drive her insane first ("Lie to Me"). He doesn't just murder a beloved character; he arranges her corpse nicely in her lover's bed along with a rose petal trail of hurt ("Passion"). This is not a nice person. I mean, had Angel been a maker of fancy pastries for a living, the government would be carting him off in an orange jumpsuit as we speak. From the moment Angel loses his soul, he immediately reverts back to his former not-so-nice self. No moment, no reflection, no thought of what he left behind. Sure, he's soul-less and demon-full now, but at some point that old "I lost my soul" excuse just doesn't cut it. I'm being a bit unfair in my assessment here because I know what's to come in future seasons; it's not impossible for a vampire (without a soul) to be redeemed, to fight for good and most importantly, to love. So it seems to me Angel chooses evil. Not to mention that, aside from all the killing, he's relentlessly cruel in his emotional torment. He blows Buffy off after they made love ("like I wanted to stick around after that"); tells her in no uncertain terms that their intimacy meant nothing to him ("it's not like I've never been there before"); taunts Xander about his conquest ("it must just eat you up that I got there first"); and narcs to Buffy's mom about her daughter's loss of innocence ("I haven't been able to sleep since the night we made love"). Jeez. That'll do pig. That'll do.
Enter Spike (James Marsters). Now it will be years before the BtVS fan will come to know the pure joy that is Spike's obsession with Buffy. For now, we'll have to be content with them as mortal enemies. In re-watching Spike's entrance, it occurs to me that we learn all we need to know about him in just his first moments in Sunnydale. In BtVS, vampires can walk around undetected because they literally wear two faces-one "normal" and one scary, bumpy, toothy one courtesy of Emmy-winning makeup and special effects. Spike enters wearing his vamp face. So, he likes to be a bad-ass. Complaining about all the big-talking vampires, Spike points out that if all the vamps that claim to have been at the crucifixion were actually there, "it would have been like Woodstock" ("School Hard"). So he likes to be cheeky. Spike prides himself on being a sort of slayer-of-Slayers-he's killed two of Buffy's predecessors in the last century. So, he likes to be dangerous. But the one you don't see coming is that Spike loves to be in love. When his delicate paramour, Drusilla (Juliet Landau), weakly enters the scene, Spike immediately shakes off the demonic visage and goes back to nice face. She's cold; he gives her his coat. She's hungry; he gives her his own warm vain. And he does all this without any fancy soul. Even the Judge-a demon summoned to bring forth Armageddon-is disgusted by the "affection and jealousy" that Spike and Drusilla share, telling them that they "stink of humanity" ("Surprise"). Future Buffy cultist, take note: when Spike forges an alliance with Buffy to stop Angel, it should become clear that vampires, like all of us, sometimes wear two faces, sometimes can be capable of change for the better and sometimes can plant the seeds for their own redemption. Oh, he's also really hot.
As the season nears its close, there's a "stand alone" episode that tells a very insular story about a pair of ghosts haunting Sunnydale High School. The long story short here is that two star-crossed lovers are doomed to reenact one tragic night that a teenage boy shoots and kills his teacher/lover, and then turns the gun on himself ("I Only Have Eyes for You"). Now, I don't often use the term "brilliant." This is partly because I'm not British and partly because I think it's truly high praise. But, this episode is brilliant for what it gives to the audience. The Angel Buffy loved is gone. It's clear the showdown is coming. A beloved member of the inner circle is dead. Tortured by guilt, Buffy blames herself while still longing for Angel's unlikely return. Through all this, we so need to hear Angel tell Buffy that he loves her one more time. We long for another kiss and a moment of forgiveness. (And it would be kinda nice to hear Buffy call Angel a bitch, especially since he keeps killing her friends). There's no neat and tidy way to do all this and still stay true to the narrative. But, when Angel and Buffy become possessed by the restless spirits, the audience gets to cheat a little. It doesn't really matter that they're channeling some long-dead couple form the 50s. All I know is Buffy gets to scream and cry and demand an explanation for the change of heart; Angel gets to tell Buffy that he loved her with his last breath; and I get to sleep that night.
In the two part final episode of Season Two ("Becoming"), we come to some of the most pivotal moments in the history of the show. Armed with her blessed sword, Buffy makes her way to the final confrontation with Angel. What she doesn't know is that Willow is attempting to re-create the dangerous curse that would once again restore Angel's soul. Willow entrusts Xander with the task of relaying this message to Buffy. Let's just say, some of us are still waiting for its delivery. Xander had one moment to be a person, to keep a promise to his best friend and potentially save the life of Buffy's love. He fails on every count. Did I mention, he's not a morally-challenged vampire? Meanwhile, back at the evil mansion, Buffy is trapped with no conceivable means of escape. Just when you think Patrick Swayze should burst in and proclaim: "nobody puts Buffy in a corner," we are reminded why we love this girl. Take everything else away-friends, weapons, hope-and Buffy still has all she needs. She has herself. This is a message for the young girls of America. This is the birth of a new genre of story-telling. Most of all, my still-doubtful friends, this is good television.
