![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyDis. reading: Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580.
---
Analytical, yes. Critical, not so much. But anyway, here are my thoughts on "The Killer in Me."
Really, it's sad. I have no critical detachment. I look at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vonnielake and jess79, with all their perfectly reasonable, steely-eyed dissecting, and I find myself writing passionate apologia in my head instead of even remotely being able to admit they have a point. I'm a sad sad loser. I admit this.
I also think it may be that my responses are fucked up by a lifetime's exposure to books by dead people. My reactions tend not to be, They shouldn't have done X! or They should have done Y!, but more along the lines of, Okay, they did X. Why did they do X? Why didn't they do Y? What is X doing for character/theme/plot-arc?
As an example, my immediate reaction tovonnielake's comment about wanting more action and initiative out of Spike was: But Spike tried that in "Beneath You." It didn't work. Moreover, it backfired spectacularly. "Wrong maneuver. Not hardly helpful." That door is closed for Spike, at least for the time being.
And that's not really a reaction to a TV show. It's a reaction to a novel. So I am coming out of left field on a lot of this.
Anyway. A lot of this is stuff I said toheres_luck last night. Some of it may be stuff she said to me. (If you want to claim any of it, HL, go right ahead. On the other hand, if you want to back away slowly, that's fine, too.)
This episode, for me, scratched a number of itches induced by "Bring On the Night" and "Showtime." We finally get Buffy back. The first scene between her and Spike ("the pitter-patter of clomping teenage girly feet," Buffy's jubilation at getting her own bathroom back) is allowing Buffy to be Buffy again, and I was frankly so relieved to see that she was still under there and that the godlike Drew Greenberg could still write her, that I would have forgiven an infinite multitude of sins.
What can I say? I'm easy.
The episode belonged to Adam Busch and Alyson Hannigan. They were amazing. A-MAZ-ING.
And I heart them all, I heart them forever, just for the CONTINUITY. Amy, the chip, the Initiative, Warren, "You're not wrong" (*shrieks with delight*) ... Give me continuity, and you can do anything you like. Oh, yeah, and Riley hates Spike again with that good old personal, visceral loathing. Thank you, sweet Jesus, another stain from "As You Were" washed out of the fabric of BtVS.
Also, this ep had very good Giles. I'm frankly just assuming that we're going to get more on Robson and the axe and why Giles hasn't been touching things. I have faith that there's a reason for it, although I frankly have no idea what that reason might be.
I don't get the down people have on Kennedy. (This may be, I admit, because I wouldn't recognize a Mary Sue if it came up and bit me perkily on the ass.) Yes, she's the anti-Tara, but Willow trying to date a clone-Tara would be Bad Bad News in all sorts of ways, including the fact that I would be not-so-quietly puking in a corner. And I love the fact that we've all been seeing Willow cope (cope, Willow, cope!) and getting through her grief and all that other stuff that Willow has historically been so extraordinarily bad at, and now it turns out that Willow wasn't actually coping at all. In one sense, this episode IS Xander's line from Graduation Day: "Come out of the fantasy, Will."
And Kennedy, who begins the episode with this sort of shallow, hedonistic, blow-off-the-big-Slayer-moment-for-a-date-with-Willow vibe, doesn't back away when Willow becomes Warren. She stays, in much the same way that Spike has always stayed for Buffy (the end of "Fool for Love" being my favorite example). Buffy and Willow both rather badly need someone who won't listen when they're told to go away. Not necessarily in a romantic way--I don't think Kennedy's in love with Willow, and Spuffy though I am, I don't care if Buffy and Spike ever kiss again, much less get with the naked. I want what we had this episode: loyalty.
[answering one ofjess79's points, because it made me think--higher praise than which a geek cannot offer :)]
Being a rat for three years clearly HAS fucked Amy up, and the jealousy, vengefulness and petty vindictiveness is very much in character from her appalling behavior in S6. Moreover, I think that it's both sensible and useful to have the "sweet little Willow" speech come from Amy, because she is right, and because there's nobody else who can say it. And she's bringing something out that I think only an enemy can: Willow isn't "sweet little Willow"; the line between Willow and her evil self, so clearly demarcated in S3, so that Good and Bad Willow could stand side-by-side, and we could SEE that they were not the same person, marked by the makeover-of-the-damned in S6, signalled by the black eye thing (which always makes me think of Krycek) in "Selfless," here becomes increasingly blurry, as AH does "Warren" things (e.g., that absolutely spine-chilling smile in the gun shop) and AB does "Willow" things. Willow thinks she's turning into Warren, but what Amy tells Kennedy makes it clear that that's not true. Willow's Warren-esque behavior comes from within Willow. We're not done with this. Not by a long shot.
I think I've probably said enough for one post. Shutting up now.
---
Analytical, yes. Critical, not so much. But anyway, here are my thoughts on "The Killer in Me."
Really, it's sad. I have no critical detachment. I look at
vonnielake and jess79, with all their perfectly reasonable, steely-eyed dissecting, and I find myself writing passionate apologia in my head instead of even remotely being able to admit they have a point. I'm a sad sad loser. I admit this.I also think it may be that my responses are fucked up by a lifetime's exposure to books by dead people. My reactions tend not to be, They shouldn't have done X! or They should have done Y!, but more along the lines of, Okay, they did X. Why did they do X? Why didn't they do Y? What is X doing for character/theme/plot-arc?
As an example, my immediate reaction to
vonnielake's comment about wanting more action and initiative out of Spike was: But Spike tried that in "Beneath You." It didn't work. Moreover, it backfired spectacularly. "Wrong maneuver. Not hardly helpful." That door is closed for Spike, at least for the time being.And that's not really a reaction to a TV show. It's a reaction to a novel. So I am coming out of left field on a lot of this.
Anyway. A lot of this is stuff I said to
heres_luck last night. Some of it may be stuff she said to me. (If you want to claim any of it, HL, go right ahead. On the other hand, if you want to back away slowly, that's fine, too.)This episode, for me, scratched a number of itches induced by "Bring On the Night" and "Showtime." We finally get Buffy back. The first scene between her and Spike ("the pitter-patter of clomping teenage girly feet," Buffy's jubilation at getting her own bathroom back) is allowing Buffy to be Buffy again, and I was frankly so relieved to see that she was still under there and that the godlike Drew Greenberg could still write her, that I would have forgiven an infinite multitude of sins.
What can I say? I'm easy.
The episode belonged to Adam Busch and Alyson Hannigan. They were amazing. A-MAZ-ING.
And I heart them all, I heart them forever, just for the CONTINUITY. Amy, the chip, the Initiative, Warren, "You're not wrong" (*shrieks with delight*) ... Give me continuity, and you can do anything you like. Oh, yeah, and Riley hates Spike again with that good old personal, visceral loathing. Thank you, sweet Jesus, another stain from "As You Were" washed out of the fabric of BtVS.
Also, this ep had very good Giles. I'm frankly just assuming that we're going to get more on Robson and the axe and why Giles hasn't been touching things. I have faith that there's a reason for it, although I frankly have no idea what that reason might be.
I don't get the down people have on Kennedy. (This may be, I admit, because I wouldn't recognize a Mary Sue if it came up and bit me perkily on the ass.) Yes, she's the anti-Tara, but Willow trying to date a clone-Tara would be Bad Bad News in all sorts of ways, including the fact that I would be not-so-quietly puking in a corner. And I love the fact that we've all been seeing Willow cope (cope, Willow, cope!) and getting through her grief and all that other stuff that Willow has historically been so extraordinarily bad at, and now it turns out that Willow wasn't actually coping at all. In one sense, this episode IS Xander's line from Graduation Day: "Come out of the fantasy, Will."
And Kennedy, who begins the episode with this sort of shallow, hedonistic, blow-off-the-big-Slayer-moment-for-a-date-with-Willow vibe, doesn't back away when Willow becomes Warren. She stays, in much the same way that Spike has always stayed for Buffy (the end of "Fool for Love" being my favorite example). Buffy and Willow both rather badly need someone who won't listen when they're told to go away. Not necessarily in a romantic way--I don't think Kennedy's in love with Willow, and Spuffy though I am, I don't care if Buffy and Spike ever kiss again, much less get with the naked. I want what we had this episode: loyalty.
[answering one of
jess79's points, because it made me think--higher praise than which a geek cannot offer :)]Being a rat for three years clearly HAS fucked Amy up, and the jealousy, vengefulness and petty vindictiveness is very much in character from her appalling behavior in S6. Moreover, I think that it's both sensible and useful to have the "sweet little Willow" speech come from Amy, because she is right, and because there's nobody else who can say it. And she's bringing something out that I think only an enemy can: Willow isn't "sweet little Willow"; the line between Willow and her evil self, so clearly demarcated in S3, so that Good and Bad Willow could stand side-by-side, and we could SEE that they were not the same person, marked by the makeover-of-the-damned in S6, signalled by the black eye thing (which always makes me think of Krycek) in "Selfless," here becomes increasingly blurry, as AH does "Warren" things (e.g., that absolutely spine-chilling smile in the gun shop) and AB does "Willow" things. Willow thinks she's turning into Warren, but what Amy tells Kennedy makes it clear that that's not true. Willow's Warren-esque behavior comes from within Willow. We're not done with this. Not by a long shot.
I think I've probably said enough for one post. Shutting up now.
