She may have a painting in her attic but she is 34 years old so I'm not sure if that'd be a factor down the line.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel - First Time Viewer
- Thread starter tomalak301
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One thing that prevents Buffy from being scary is that characters we care about die infrequently enough for it to be a big deal when it happens.
I Only Have Eyes For You
I was confused about this episode, but after reading the plot again, it actually was pretty good. The scene between Angel and Buffy at the end was beautifully written and acted.
I am glad they revisited Snyder and the Police Chief and the fact that they know about the Hellmouth.
I also liked Spike finally getting out of the chair. Watching Angel take Drusilla away from him finally got him to stand up.
I was confused about this episode, but after reading the plot again, it actually was pretty good. The scene between Angel and Buffy at the end was beautifully written and acted.
I am glad they revisited Snyder and the Police Chief and the fact that they know about the Hellmouth.
I also liked Spike finally getting out of the chair. Watching Angel take Drusilla away from him finally got him to stand up.
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Go Fish
This episode was like Steroid use meets Shape of Water. I'm a baseball fan, and I know around 1998 was when the Steroid scandal really hit MLB, so watching this episode knowing it happened in 1998 made it easy to put the connection together. Also, I've noticed in a few episodes so far, there is gun use at the school. I wonder if the show got criticized by that, and knowing what would happen about a year later (Columbine), I wonder if the show stopped portraying the casual gun use I've been noticing a few times in season 2.
As for the episode, I liked it as a monster of the week story. It wasn't the best Monster of the week story in season 2 (That probably goes to Killed by Death), but it was a calm before the major stuff happens in the two part finale.
This episode was like Steroid use meets Shape of Water. I'm a baseball fan, and I know around 1998 was when the Steroid scandal really hit MLB, so watching this episode knowing it happened in 1998 made it easy to put the connection together. Also, I've noticed in a few episodes so far, there is gun use at the school. I wonder if the show got criticized by that, and knowing what would happen about a year later (Columbine), I wonder if the show stopped portraying the casual gun use I've been noticing a few times in season 2.
As for the episode, I liked it as a monster of the week story. It wasn't the best Monster of the week story in season 2 (That probably goes to Killed by Death), but it was a calm before the major stuff happens in the two part finale.
Go Fish is all foreshadowing. There's a fish stick battle for the ages in the finale.
What? You think I'm joking?
What? You think I'm joking?
I'll see either tomorrow night or sometime this weekend, won't I.
I think I might need to rewatch I Only Have Eyes for You. Reading some of the reviews makes it into this masterpiece episode, yet I thought it was just ok. Maybe I missed the point of it?
Following the Columbine shooting Part II of Season 3's finale was held back for two months airing in mid-July, and an earlier Season 3 episode was held back until late September airing just two weeks before Season 4's October premiere.
I liked it more than you did, but I also think that a big part of the love for that episode is its legacy. It's the template for most standalone Buffy or Angel episodes going forward. While there are still metaphors for adolescence and adulthood going forward, future standalone episodes tend to take the I Only Have Eyes for You approach and dig deep into the characters' relationships and ongoing character development while also keeping the season's myth arc going in the background. There's far less cut and dry complete standalones (ala your Inca Mummy Girls and Go Fishes) going forward.
Granted, there are still "myth arc" episodes and "standalone episodes". It's just that (early Angel: Season 1 aside) the focus in the standalones is primarily on the main and recurring characters and less on the monster-of-the-week. They get to still shake things up with one-off stories, but there's more meat on their bones. And they no longer live or die solely on the strength of the monster-of-the-week.
It's also the episode that made The WB take notice of David Boreanaz and approach Whedon and David Greenwalt about developing a spin-off.
The episode is all about Buffy forgiving herself. As Cordy bluntly points out, Buffy was over-identifying with the boy - i.e. she's the younger person in a May-December relationship who "killed" the older person. And everything she says at the end (playing the role of the boy) is an almost verbatim mish-mash of things she's said since Innocence. This helps her fully accept that Angel is really dead and Angelus is his own person. But it wasn't her fault.
There's also a little of little tidbits sort of "teasing" (for lack of a better term) season 3. They're obviously nothing you'd ever be expected to pick up your first time through - but expect this a lot moving forward. The rest of the series is littered with easter eggs referencing future events. Whedon really starts to have fun with this sort of thing. There's a particularly famous one in season 3 that's acts as a nice little metaphor for the entire plot of season 5.
You're thinking of "Earshot."
"Killed by Death" was creeeeepy. Der Kindestod definitely rank among Buffy's best one-shot villians for me, matched only by
I was never a fan of "Go Fish." Partly because of the ick factor with the fish people. Also a lot of the rapey stuff in it is ... well, some of it is pretty realistic. But there's also some weirdness to unpack, especially when they have Buffy equate rape with sex and respond to a rape threat with a quip about her reputation.
"I Only Have Eyes for You" isn't my favorite, but mostly because I tend not to like that type of episode in any series (see, for instance, DS9's "Dramatis Personae"). But it was well done and I can see why it would land on some people's favorite-episode lists.
Taken together, those three are a well-timed break from the Angelus arc. Generally, Buffy was very good at knowing when to insert a couple of "breather" episodes into a dark arc, and also at sticking to continuity by keeping the arc going in the background.
The Gentlemen in "Hush."
I was never a fan of "Go Fish." Partly because of the ick factor with the fish people. Also a lot of the rapey stuff in it is ... well, some of it is pretty realistic. But there's also some weirdness to unpack, especially when they have Buffy equate rape with sex and respond to a rape threat with a quip about her reputation.
"I Only Have Eyes for You" isn't my favorite, but mostly because I tend not to like that type of episode in any series (see, for instance, DS9's "Dramatis Personae"). But it was well done and I can see why it would land on some people's favorite-episode lists.
Taken together, those three are a well-timed break from the Angelus arc. Generally, Buffy was very good at knowing when to insert a couple of "breather" episodes into a dark arc, and also at sticking to continuity by keeping the arc going in the background.
Well, I think I just wasn't in the right frame of mind last night because I rewatched I Only Have Eyes For You and loved it a lot better the second time around. Maybe I was hung up on the external threats happening with the school and totally missed the internal strife this caused Buffy (And Angelus for that matter) because it was a lot more emotionally impactful the second time around. Actually, watching the reenactment play out, I was reminded of the scene in Babylon 5 where Ivanova is talking to Stephen and says "All Love is Unrequited, Stephen. All of It". One could actually make a connection between Ivanova and Buffy, where they experience true love for the first time, something bad happens, and they are the ones who feel guilty when in reality they aren't. This really was a touching episode and it does payoff what Buffy has been going through since Innocence. Also, screw Go Fish, I have a feeling it was right to rewatch this episode leading into the finale.
Speaking of Go Fish, the more I thought about that episode the more I didn't really like it. For one, the scene in the car followed by the guy telling Buffy to put on more clothes angered me, and it wasn't really touched on again, mainly because the coach turned out to actually be an evil douchebag. At least he got his comeuppance, but still the episode wasn't all that great. I will say it was nice to see Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) as a guest star though.
Go Fish always felt to me like a late Season 1/early Season 2 episode that somehow teleported to right before the Season 2 finale. Poor quality, terrible messaging and really random guest cast (the aforementioned Wenty, Assault of Precinct 13 & Halloween's Charles Cyphers, Two and a Half Men & Krampus' Conchata Ferrell and I see you in that sauna Shane West) aside, it just feels so out of place in context with the rest of the show.
That might have been the case. It was originally supposed to air before Angel lost his soul, although I don't know how long before.
That makes so much sense. No wonder the Angelus scene feels sort of shoehorned in there rather than organically like the other late season standalones. A quick check of the Buffy wikia shows that the source on this is an audio interview David Fury did with The Succubus Club. That brings me back.
Random note about "Some Assembly Required" and "Passion" writer "Ty King". He was David Tyron King, a mentor of Whedon's that he met while working on the short-lived Parenthood series in 90-91. He'd been retired for four years when he came out of retirement to write those episodes of Buffy.
Yeah. I didn't know that either.
"Eyes.." really does feel more like the traditional penultimate.
And I don't like Go Fish much either. If not for Wentworth, I doubt I'd ever watch it again. Hashtag that's cold.
"Eyes.." really does feel more like the traditional penultimate.
And I don't like Go Fish much either. If not for Wentworth, I doubt I'd ever watch it again. Hashtag that's cold.
Sometime after this episode aired and before I watched Buffy, I was watching a movie with my daughter who was a teenager by then, and this old song popped up in the movie. When the song started, my daughter said that she liked this song. I was shocked that she'd even heard it, much less liked it. i didn't ask her how she knew about the song or where she'd heard it.
It wasn't until years later when I finally watched Buffy that I realized this was where she'd heard I only Have Eyes For You. I laughed because Buffy was the only thing that could have gotten her to listen to a 1950's doo wop song.
And this was before the internet was as prevalent as it is today. At the time I thought I had missed the finale somehow.
By the way, I just noticed Nicky is back in the news again...
Something similar happened with me and my grandfather. I was dirt poor and he was ...not, so took me to the "Ocean City Pops" for opera night. At one point I turned to him and went, "Oh, my god. This is the song from when Giles discovered Ms. Calendar's body in Buffy!" Other than the time Carol Channing stayed afterwards to talk to everybody, it was the only time I had fun there.
By the way, I just noticed Nicky is back in the news again...
What happened?
Jason
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