Buffy: 2x19 - Choices

[fajrdrako]

I skipped over two episodes of Buffy and didn't even notice I'd missed them. My excuse: I seem to have a case of flu that is meddling with my brain competence. Or something.

Blush. Okay, skipping back two episodes: "Choices".

Funny how I don't like Faith at all but I do enjoy her scenes with the Mayor.

1. Interesting present-giving scene; Revealing bit of dialogue:

   Mayor: This isn't a free ride, young lady. You know, I'm beginning to think that somebody's getting a little spoiled. Maybe I should take this back.
   Faith: Sorry... Sir.

   However affectionate the Mayor may feel towards Faith, he's using that affection to control her. And it's working.
   
   
2. Also a revealing bit of dialogue between Buffy and Angel:

   Buffy: Do you get the feeling that we're kind of in a rut?
   Angel: A rut?
   Buffy: You never take me any place new.
   Angel: What about that fire demon nest in the cave by the beach? I felt that was a nice change of pace.
   Buffy: So this is our future? This is how we're going to spend our nights when I'm fifty and you're ... the same age you are now.
   Angel: Let's just get you to fifty.
   Buffy: Liking that plan.

   Meaning that Buffy has been thinking about the future and what it implies. Now, part of this seems to be giving Angel responsibility for her role as a Slayer, which isn't valid at all. And presumably they used to go to the Bronze? Buffy's angst is mostly frustration with her untenable problem; an inability to resolve her relationship with Angel.
   
   
3. Cute: Buffy thinks her mother's commenting on her wearing her earrings, but it's really the acceptance at a university. Good Buffy line: "I just can't decide on a school right now. I mean I want to sleep on it, you know, mull it over. Raise them up my inner flagpole, see which one I salute." In Northwestern a real university?
   
   
4. Lovely discussion of universities:

   Buffy (to Willow): I can't believe you got into Oxford!
   Willow: It's pretty exciting.
   Oz: That's some deep academia there.
   Buffy: That's where they make Gileses.

   Which of course has to be a very good thing, scones or no scones!
   
   
5. Another good bit of Xander dialogue - his bits do seem to be improving.

   Xander: Everything in life is foreign territory. Kerouac. He's my teacher. The open road is my school.
   Buffy: Making the open dumpster your cafeteria?
   Xander: Go ahead, mock me.
   Oz: I think she just did.

   Oz, as always, is wonderful.
   
   
6. Cordelia says, "And M.I.T. is a Clearasil ad with housing." Does she mean they are geeks there?
   
   
7. And of course I loved this bit:

   Xander: She's definitely got a chip going.
   Willow: Maybe if you didn't goad her so much?
   Xander: I can't help it. It's my nature.
   Willow: Maybe you need a better nature.

   Yes, that's what I think Xander needs!
   
   
8. Another lovely Giles line:

   Wesley: You cannot leave Sunnydale. By the power invested in me by the Council, I forbid it. (
   Giles: Ah yes, that should settle it.

   Giles is so... right. But how does Wesley think he can force Buffy to do anything? Wishful thinking, I guess. Giles would know that the thing to do is to appeal to her conscience. But Giles doesn't see a need to control her. No wonder I love Giles.
   
   
9. Lovely Buffy line: "I gotta have a plan?" She's best at impromptu and she knows it.
   
   
10. Great moment, at the Airport:

    Vampire: You killed him.
    Faith: What are you, the narrator?

    I could almost like Faith, with lines like these. And she gets to use her shiny new knife, too.
    
    
11. Wesley continues under the delusion that he's in charge. Not very realistic. I like Buffy's line to him: "Wes, hop on the train or get off the tracks."
    
    
12. And Willow's bold: "Hey, I eat danger for breakfast." Good for her.
    
    
13. Xander baits Cordelia in the dress shop. Can't he let it go? Clearly not. I liked them both better when they were together.
    
    
14. Giles' offering tea to Wesley reminds me of something. Rings a bell. What?
    
    
15. Faith captures Willow. Aaack! Scary!
    
    
16. Love the argument between Wesley and Buffy over whether to rescue Willow. "Are you made of human parts?"
    
    
17. Oz takes action.
    
    
18. Willow: good with a pencil. I pity the poor vampire who messes with her.
    
    
19. Great Mayor line:

    Mayor: Ever have a dog?
    Faith: What?
    Mayor: I did. Rusty. Irish setter. A dog's friendship is stronger than reason, stronger than it's own sense of self-preservation. Buffy's like a dog, and hey, before you can say Jack Robinson, you'll get to see me kill her like one.

20. Love the Mayor referring to Willow as Faith's 'new toy'.
    
    
21. Another good line from the Mayor, as he meets the others at the darkened school: "I feel like we should all be wearing trench coats."
    
    
22. Exchange between the Mayor and Angel:

    Mayor: So you're the little girl that's been causing me all this trouble. She's pretty, Angel. A little skinny. Still don't understand why it couldn't work out with you and my Faith. Guess you kind of just have strange taste in women.
    Angel: Well, what can I say? I like them sane.

    I suppose sanity, like many things, is relative.
    
    
23. The Mayor makes the case for Angel to break up with Buffy: "And let's not forget the fact that any moment of true happiness will turn you evil. I mean, come on. What kind of a life can you offer her? I don't see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun. She's a blossoming young girl and you want to keep her from the life she should have until it has passed her by. My God! I think that's a little selfish. Is that what you came back from Hell for? Is that your greater purpose?" Aside from the fact that I disagree with him, I wouldn't want to do what the Mayor wants, whatever his purposes in saying so, or however right he might be.
    
    
24. And I like his famous last words: "Well, that went smooth." In Sunnydale? Is he kidding?
    
    
25. Then the yucky spider-monster gets the cop.
    
    
26. I liked this exchange, about the spiders in the box:

    Oz: Is that all of them?
    Mayor: Ah, not really. You see, there's about fifty... billion of these happy little critters in here. Would you like to see?

27. And a very wonderful line from Snyder: "You. All of you. Why couldn't you be dealing drugs like normal people?"
    
    
28. Good line from Buffy: "This is your night for suave, Will. You should get captured more often."
    
    
29. Willow decides to go to the same college as Buffy - in Sunnydale. Awww.
    
    
30. This is good:

    Buffy: Yes, please. It's weird. You look at something and you think you know exactly what you're seeing, and then you find out it's something else entirely.
    Willow: Neat, huh?
    Buffy: Sometimes it is.

31. Cordelia covets a dress. And she's working in the store that sells it. I can relate to that.
    
    
32. Buffy proclaims that she and Angel are "okay" without believing it. She used to believe it. Poor Angel.
    
    
33. If I counted, I wonder how many choices I could find in this episode?
    
    
    

Comments

[beathen.livejournal.com]

3. Northwestern a real university? - Yes. In Illinois. (http://www.northwestern.edu/)

8. Giles doesn't see a need to control her - He tried, and he tried following the council's orders, but after 3x12 (Helpless) Giles has realized that Buffy is better off doing her own thing with his guidance, not orders.

[angelfireeast.livejournal.com]

Great episode and you highligthed some great lines. I forgot how rockn the Mayor was.

[tardistenantsue.livejournal.com]

Again, all my favorite bits. I got kind of excited - even though I know the series goes on - to find that Willow and Buffy would be going to the same school.

And I tried to hate the Mayor, but I almost accidentally liked him.

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

You are poorly?

*squishes you* - very gently and from a distance because of the 'germs'

Feel better soon.

[gillo]

# Exchange between the Mayor and Angel:

Mayor: So you're the little girl that's been causing me all this trouble. She's pretty, Angel. A little skinny. Still don't understand why it couldn't work out with you and my Faith. Guess you kind of just have strange taste in women.
Angel: Well, what can I say? I like them sane.

I suppose sanity, like many things, is relative.

Bear in mind he drove Drusilla mad - layers...

Willow: good with a pencil. I pity the poor vampire who messes with her.

She will Develop Her Skills...

Yup, these late S3 episodes really rock. The Mayor is just wonderfully twisted.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Yay, Choices - possibly my favourite Willow episode. And I really like her dress too.

Oz, as always, is wonderful

I really liked the exchange:
XANDER: We Bohemian, anti-establishment types are used to being persecuted.
OZ: Well, sure. You're all so weird.

Wesley: You cannot leave Sunnydale. By the power invested in me by the Council, I forbid it. (
Giles: Ah yes, that should settle it.

I love Wesley's little hand gesture of forbidding. He's so cute when he's stuffy. And I liked how Giles was as proud of Buffy getting in Northwestern as Joyce was.

Ooh, and I love Wesley wanting to synchronise watches and everybody else not wearing any. (Though I don't understand how anyone can not wear a watch.)

Willow: good with a pencil. I pity the poor vampire who messes with her

Willow being pretty darn good with everything here. I really like her confrontation with Faith, especially her line after Faith punches her:
FAITH: You try to hurt me, I try to hurt you. I'm just a little more efficient.
WILLOW: And here I thought you just didn't have a comeback.

At that point I'm usually waving "Go Willow" metaphorical pompoms. Though I also like Faith's reply to Willow's taunt that she has nobody - she has the Mayor.

The Mayor makes the case for Angel to break up with Buffy

I like his reference to his wife. Strangely moving - and I have to admit I do kind of agree with his points. It's up to Buffy and Angel whether they think it's worth it but he doesn't say anything that isn't true about their relationship. And I like the idea of bad guys telling the truth about things.

I always liked the image of people climbing on the tables when the spide things come out.

Buffy proclaims that she and Angel are "okay" without believing it. She used to believe it. Poor Angel

I don't think he believes it anymore either, so poor both of them. I said Enemies was the beginning of the end for them and this is where it gets really obvious.

[atheneunknown.livejournal.com]

I truely didn't grow to enjoy Cordy till about this point in the series. Seeing her be 'normal' instead of the snob she was raised to be totally made me gain affection.

Mayor is a creepy bastard, but I loved him as a villian, not as much as Spike though. And I rather prefer Spike in a non-villanic capacity anyway. I think I just made that word up...buffy makes me do that lol.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I truely didn't grow to enjoy Cordy till about this point in the series.

I came to enjoy Cordelia in season 2 - she has such wonderful lines. Sadly, I watched the first first episodes of Angel and hated her there with a passion, which is one of the reasons I stopped watching Angel cold. I'll go back.

The Mayor is entertaining but nothing compares to my love for Spike. Unless, maybe, I don't know, my love for Lymond or Aral Vorkosigan or Captain Jack Harkness or Sam Vimes.

Onward!

Making words up, especially when they have wonderful and coherent meanings, is a fine tradition. Buffy did it. Shakespeare did it. People should do it more.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

possibly my favourite Willow episode

Yes, she's at her best here, isn't she? She's the one who saves the day, and bravely.

Yes, that's a great Xander/Oz exchange. Oz is so wonderful. Not him so much as his dialogue. Every word he says, just about.

He's so cute when he's stuffy.

Oh, he is! Most people would just be annoying if they talked like that but his stuffiness is adorable. And usually bewildered. He can't understand why they don't all do it his way. So he keeps trying.

I liked how Giles was as proud of Buffy getting in Northwestern as Joyce was.

Yes. I'm a sucker for affection and pride between Giles and Buffy.

I love Wesley wanting to synchronise watches and everybody else not wearing any

So very cute.

I don't understand how anyone can not wear a watch

Especially in school, where schedules are so important. Constantly.

And here I thought you just didn't have a comeback.

Brilliant. A wonderful moment. And illustrates so well the contrast between Willow and Faith. The one all brains and understanding, the other all brawn and hostility.

I like the idea of bad guys telling the truth about things.

I like it that the Mayor said it. Who else could have? But I hated it that they made it true. (By "they" I primarily mean Whedon.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind he drove Drusilla mad - layers...

And rejected her too, didn't he? Layers and layers. My thought was not so much of his relationship with Drusilla (apparently unaffected by her madness) but whether Buffy was actually what I'd call sane.

these late S3 episodes really rock

They do!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the nice non-germy wishes. I'm feeling better now... not quite 100% but much better. Almost myself.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I got kind of excited ... to find that Willow and Buffy would be going to the same school.

The show would be so different if they weren't together. Or if they weren't both in it.

The Mayor was too entertaining to hate. He was creepy, so I can't say I liked him, but I always love his scenes.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The Mayor was amazing. Funny and scary and always in character, always with a new facet coming out. A brilliant character.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Northwestern: cool.

I love it that Giles can learn from experience. And that he understands Buffy. I think they're actually very alike.