"We're not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you. But that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you. We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here. [Zombies! Hyena people!] But whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you showed up to stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you or helped by you at one time or another. We're proud to say that the Class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate in Sunnydale history! And we know at least part of that is because of you. So, the Senior Class offers its thanks and gives you . . . this. It's from all of us, and it has written here: Buffy Summers, Class Protector." - Presentation by Danny Strong as Jonathan on behalf of the Sunnydale High Prom Committee in "The Prom"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Third Season DVD Review
By Marlo Serritella
We all have our moments. What I mean is, we all have our TV moments-those flashes in (prime)time by which we begin to mark our own lives. For some, it was when Jordan Catalano first leaned up against a locker with that apathetic stare. For others, it may have been Crockett and Tubbs in a slow-mo shootout, Sam wishing Diane "a nice life" or maybe even Dylan cheating on Brenda with Kelly (the little tramp). For better or for worse, TV has become much of our common language and experience. Though some might turn up their noses at the notion of television serving as a valuable source of common ground, the fact remains that there are many things that divide us. But, I bet if I greeted you with a gleeful "hey, hey hey," or told you that you were "correct-amundo" or "sponge-worthy," you'd know exactly what I meant. Our president can't quite remember the names of key foreign leaders. Yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows who fits Johnny Bravo's jacket. Certainly in my lifetime, TV has become far more than entertainment. It's inspiration. It's escape. It's even solace. Perhaps you won't be surprised to learn that, for me, many of these pivotal moments of which I write were born in the mind of Joss Whedon and brought to splendid life in the form of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If this is all a little too much philosophizing for a casual Internet read, you'll have to forgive me. As I look back over season three of Buffy, I am reminded of what great things can be accomplished between commercial breaks.
If you're reading my loving commentary on Buffy's third season, I'm going to have to assume that you have read my musings on Seasons One and Two as well. If not, you may want to get up to speed. I simply can't relive the pain and tragedy again by giving you a recap. It was hard enough the first time. Season three, perhaps even more than the others, serves as concrete evidence of the show's great respect for its audience. Go ahead and reference Juice Newton, Willy Loman, Godot and My Friend Flicka. We can handle it. I'll see your "Brian Boitano," Mr. Whedon, and raise you a "King Friday." But, it's deeper than that of course (this is Buffy we're talking about, not Charmed). While the language of Buffy will continually keep even the sharpest viewer on her toes; it's the actual substance-themes, issues, dilemmas-that truly speaks to us. Faced with the end of high school, the Scooby gang confronts the future with all the courage, panic, angst and humor that twenty-two episodes can contain. In case you're just joining us, that means there will be scaly demons to be fought and unforeseen ethical questions to be answered. In BtVS, as in life, the pain of change brings the challenge of growth. In high school, it's not so much that you come out as the person who you will always be; but perhaps that you emerge from the fray as the possibility (or for those of you die-hard fans, the Potential) of who you might be. Season three poses a very clear question to the characters, and therefore to all of us watching: who are you? Or more precisely-who do you want to become?
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) longs to be normal. But, what kind of welcome home party does a Slayer get after a summer spent running away from a broken heart? A zombie death match ("Dead Man's Party"). Her SAT study session? In a graveyard armed with a number-two pencil ("Band Candy"). And Christmas in Buffy's world? Spent in a gut-wrenching sob-fest trying to convince her love (just returned from an untold hell dimension, by the way) not to commit suicide ("Amends"). I bet it was annoying when your mom tried to take a more active interest in your life during high school. Well, at least she didn't end up spearheading a witch-hunt that ended with you and your best friend nearly being burned at the stake ("Gingerbread"). The only thing standing between Buffy and the coveted Homecoming crown-other than every popular girl in school and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) armed with a spatula-is a little hunting party for demons affectionately deemed "Slayerfest '98" ("Homecoming"). Most girls' eighteenth birthdays come with presents and party hats; Buffy's rite of passage involves being surreptitiously drugged, drained of her Slayer powers and trapped in a house of horrors with a serial killer turned vampire ("Helpless"). This is a girl who has to save the prom from evil hell-hounds before she can actually enjoy the fruit punch ("The Prom"). But Buffy is the Chosen One-not for Prom Queen, but for saving the world. And thank God for it.
It's Senior Year. Visions of graduation and college keg-parties should be dancing like sugarplums. But it's also Tuesday in Sunnydale, and that generally doesn't mean fun. The opening sequence of vampire slayage finds the gang once again at the local graveyard fighting the undead. Our hero is noticeably absent. Cut to Buffy wearing a dingy waitress uniform and getting her ass slapped by some oaf in a seedy diner. What's on the menu? Steaming hot suffering of course, with a side dish of ultimate sacrifice. We quickly learn that Buffy hasn't returned to Sunnydale since the final battle with Angel (David Boreanaz). But hiding behind a fake nametag isn't quite as effective in dodging a sacred destiny as one might hope. It isn't long before fate comes knocking in the form of a runaway named Lily who recognizes Buffy and (shockingly) needs Buffy's help to find her missing boyfriend. You have to appreciate the juxtaposition that the show sets up. Back in Sunnydale, Mrs. Summers (Kristine Sutherland) lashes out at Giles (Anthony Head) for Buffy's disappearance and demands to know: "who exactly is she [Buffy]?" ("Anne"). Her mother may still not have a clue as to what it means to be Buffy, but Lily gets it right without much deep thought: "that's who you are-you help people 'n stuff." ("Anne"). So that's what she does. She helps Lily. She investigates, she questions, she fights bad guys. In short, she ends up in hell. Literally. I don't think it's just a coincidence that one of the defining characteristics of this episode's particular hell dimension is the loss of identity. Buffy has presumably spent the last several months pretending to be "Anne"-timid waitress and loner-"desperate to run away from whatever it is [she] used to be" ("Anne"). But when scary hell-guard asks Buffy her name (the correct, non-death-inducing answer being: "no one"), our girl just can't help herself. She replies: "I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And you are?" For a moment, all is right with the world again.
So, Buffy returns to Sunnydale-to shop and date and "save the world from unspeakable demons, you know . . . girlie stuff" ("Faith Hope and Trick"). But Buffy barely has time to dust off her lucky stake before she learns that there's a new Slayer in town. Now, when one Slayer dies, a new one is called. Remember that Buffy died for just a minute or so in Season One. This set into action a chain of events resulting in . . . Faith (Eliza Dushku). I have struggled for some time with how exactly to introduce you to Faith. I have to be very delicate, very diplomatic, very sensitive in my description so as not to bias the Buffy virgin. In short-Faith is crazy. For a long time, I held on to hope that the audience would get to see a flashback moment of how Faith received her Slayer calling. I imagine she might have been shaking down some red-headed kid with glasses (possibly in a wheelchair) for his lunch money or maybe even tying a damsel to a railroad track. In just her first moments on screen, Faith talks about slaying like some kind of extreme-sport that can both be accomplished while naked and that also makes her "hungry and horny" ("Faith Hope and Trick"). Buffy, on the other hand, constantly struggles with the balance between her layered identity: "you can't just define me by my Slayerness" (Choices"). In the heat of competing against Cordelia for Homecoming Queen (in a hysterical episode by the way), she even goes so far as to separate her competing selves, saying, "I'm not talking about the Slayer, I'm talking about Buffy" ("Homecoming"). Faith suffers no such dilemma. She gets off on the slaying in a disturbing sort of way that worries Buffy immediately. I have to wonder how much horror could have been avoided had Giles heeded Buffy's initial warning about Faith: "She's not playing with a full deck. She has almost no deck. She has a three." ("Faith Hope and Trick"). Well, maybe a five.
But Faith serves a much more important role than villain de jour. She is a stark example of what could have been. Buffy is in fact Faith, had she made all the wrong choices in her life. Both have been given this incredibly burdensome gift. Faith, however, missed the "burden" part of it. Her slaying has nothing to do with the morality of saving the world from monsters. It's really just a happy coincidence that all the fun she's having also results in a reduction in the vampire population. It's not duty that propels her but the rush: "slaying is what we were built for. If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong" (Bad Girls"). Buffy, however, has now saved the world from an apocalypse about a jillion times and yet still worries that all her fighting isn't making enough of a difference ("Gingerbread"). And though Buffy longs to really "live in the world . . . to be chosen for something other than this," she accepts the responsibility that comes with her power ("Homecoming"). This isn't to say that Faith's attitude doesn't have its charms. In one night of unrestrained shenanigans, even Buffy is temporarily seduced by Faith's mantra of "take, want, have" ("Bad Girls"). But it doesn't take long for the amoral road to take a sharp right into immorality. When Faith accidentally kills a man who gets caught in the slaying cross-fires, she wastes no time with remorse: "I don't care" ("Bad Girls"). And even though Buffy was not the one wielding the offending stake, it eats away at her "like something sick creeped inside you, and you can't get it out" ("Consequences"). Some might argue that Faith finally crosses over into the enemy camp when she knocks on Mayor McEvil's door looking for work as his new chief henchwoman and spy. I say it happens the moment she betrays Buffy by setting her up for the murder Faith committed. For this Buffy fan, there was just no coming back from that.
I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to more fully explain the chief villain of season three - the Mayor of Sunnydale, Mayor Wilkins (Harry Groener). He's evil. Duh. He also loves miniature golf, insists on good nutrition and impeccable personal hygiene and doesn't care for cursing during mass slaughters. In addition to serving as a wicked commentary on two-faced politicians (I mean, come on, it's no coincidence this villain also holds political office), he seduces Faith with a twisted daddy/daughter relationship. Except daddy's little girl in this warped scenario wins his affections by killing daddy's enemies. Sweet story, no? And once Faith makes this transition, well it's as if she's opening Pandora's box as she jumps down the rabbit hole. She conspires to rob Angel of his soul, practically rapes and kills Xander and holds Willow hostage just for good measure. Now, in terms of the entertainment value, evil is a very good color on Faith. But this is Whedon's world where there is no cause without an effect. In Faith's case, she ends up half-dead after a kill-or-be-killed fight with Buffy. Yet, even while comatose, she manages to come to Buffy's aid (I'm not telling how). If there's a seed of redemption, chances are it will grow. Stay tuned.
So Faith goes over to the dark side. But this is Sunnydale, where everyone gets their very own identity crisis. At this point in the series, we know that Willow Rosenberg's idea of rebellion includes eating a banana outside of the officially designated school lunch period. Perhaps this is why seeing her evil, skanky and "kinda gay" vampire twin is so fantastic for the audience ("Doppelgangland"). It's telling that both Willows think "this world's no fun" ("Doppelgangland"). Evil Willow probably feels this way because humans back in her preferred dimension are like chew toys. As for Good Willow-well, she may be best friends with a superhero, but she's still an awkward teenager trying to figure out her place her in the world. It isn't long after this brush with her vampire-self that Willow makes her decision to forgo Oxford and Yale and stay in Sunnydale to help Buffy save the world: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in" ("Choices"). But we know it's not that easy-stay tuned to Season Six when you'll wish Willow had stuck with her original plan of staying home, flossing and dying a virgin. Speaking of an identity crisis, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) finally gets to do more than fetch the doughnuts when a zombie classmate attempts to enlist him as his new partner in crime ("Zeppo"). A couple things about this episode-first, every last moment is funnier than the entirety of most half-hour sitcoms (Still Standing, anyone?). What's most startling about this week is how silly the impending Armageddon seems. While Buffy and the gang battle a three-headed serpent that's trying to suck the world into hell, Xander's got real problems. He has to figure out how to save himself from his supreme lack of confidence. Evil, shmeeval-Xander's internal struggle with the essence of cool somehow becomes all the more vital to ultimate survival. Plus there's a kinda dirty reference to "Up With People" that you'll never forget. Finally, just because you're undead, doesn't mean you can't question your place in the world. Hoping to compel Angel to kill Buffy, The First Evil slowly drives Angel to the brink of suicide with hauntings by his past victims. If you haven't yet forgiven Angel for his Season Two naughtiness, just try to hold a grudge as he tells Buffy: "It's not the demon in me that needs killing, it's the man" ("Amends").
As graduation approaches and the unknown of life after high school begins to loom, our gang learns another important lesson-be careful what you wish for. Devastated by Xander's infidelity with Willow (you're just gonna have to watch now, aren't you), Cordelia makes the mistake of wishing Buffy had never come to Sunnydale in one of my favorite episodes, "The Wish." Poof! Suddenly it's Buffy's version of It's a Wonderful Life, if it were a really horrible, sucky life and Mr. Potter ended up killing George Bailey with a blunt object. Do I even need to bother telling you what kind of sticky end awaits Cordelia in bizzaro Sunnydale where vamps rule and Willow gets her kicks from slowly burning Angel alive? Come on, Cordelia barely stands a chance in a world where Buffy is her friend. Don't watch the final fight sequence without a box of tissue and some Valium. In "Earshot," Buffy is temporarily infused with the power to hear people's thoughts. At first, she embraces it like a novelty gift: "Principal Snyder has Walk Like an Egyptian stuck in his head." First on her list of things to do with her new power is to piss off everyone in her English class with her sudden PhD-level insight of Shakespeare. But it's a big no fun when she "hears" that someone is planning on a murderous school rampage. In an unexpected twist, Buffy corners a nerdy classmate with a rifle just as it appears that he's about to take out half the students. What she learns instead is that he planned only on killing himself. The exchange that takes place once again proves how this little show about vampires just continues to get it right: "Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own, the beautiful ones, the popular ones. . . everyone. . . It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening" ("Earshot"). And she would know.
So, then, what will graduation bring? If you answered, "Pomp and Circumstance" you're only partially correct. First Buffy has to figure out how to save Angel from the supernatural poison coursing through his body that can only be cured with the blood of a Slayer (courtesy of Faith), while simultaneously averting the Mayor's ascension to the highest level of demonhood. I'm guessing it's not the diploma that Buffy needs to help her make the transition into adulthood. I think that happens when she saves Angel by forcing him to practically suck her dry in the bite felt round the world. But, it will take more than a few pints of lost blood to keep Buffy down. The most interesting thing about this year's final battle is that the rules have changed a bit. No longer are the Slayer and her Scoobies left to stand alone against the powers of the Hellmouth. The entire graduating class is enlisted to wage this war. Their Slayer needs them, and she has no more patience for working in secrecy. So, there's a little pomp, a little circumstance and a lot of ass-kicking, explosives and martyrdom. But, isn't that how we all felt leaving high school? (I never said the metaphors were subtle.) Sure, maybe you didn't take down the principal armed with a flaming cross-bow; but the feeling of survival was probably the same. What continues to puzzle me, is how these kids return back to the routine of their lives now that they know about the human world's struggle against the forces of darkness. I'm thinking Buffy should have had a sign-up sheet at the refreshments table. But, these kids get to go back to their lives and believe that good triumphed over evil for evermore. That's why she's the hero, folks. So Buffy leads her first army to victory. Somehow, I don't think it will be the last.
