fajrdrako | Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Prophecy Girl (1x12)

So I get to the last episode of season 1, and it's the best one so far, on several counts. The pacing was terrific, the characterization raised a notch for everyone, and the season brought to a real climax.

1. The episode starts with a technique they've used a number of times to start an episode: set it up to appear that a certain improbably thing is happening, and it turns out not to be happening. In this case, it looks as if Xander is asking Buffy on a date. We know it's not really happening (at least not yet) so it has to be practice. In other cases we had dreams and illusions.

I'd like this better if the set-up weren't so transparent each time. It isn't annoying - at least, not yet - but it's a bit of a near miss: more like cheap thrills still than real suspense, simply because each time it's been too obvious and transparent.

This show has mastered punchy scenes and dramatic moments. Not much subtlety yet. It needs to work on its rough edges. It's getting close.

2. Xander: "Just kill me!" I hate that less than I used to. His delivery is improving. His lines are starting to seem funny. Heaven help me.

3. Has Cordelia yet had the same boyfriend two episodes in a row?

4. Is the Codex in demonspeak? Or some other language?

5. Buffy: "Giles would be so proud." I'm glad she's thinking of him.

6. I keep telling myself not to mention it, but I think of it every time I see Giles' office: I love the figure of Shiva Nataraja on his shelf. My favourite god-icon. I get a fannish thrill every time I see it.

7. Earthquake. Aren't those common in California? I guess you can never really get used to them. Hellmouth doesn't make it any easier. I love Cordelia's inclusion in these scenes.

8. The Master remains kind of dull/annoying/silly but I kind of like his voice. I hope this episode gets rid of him once and for all.

9. Buffy: Giles, care? I'm putting my life on the line battling the undead. Look, I broke a nail, okay? I'm wearing a press-on. The least you could do is exhibit some casual interest. You could go, 'hmm'.
Giles: Hmm?

This is very funny, but, forgive me, doesn't it sound a little as if Buffy has been given Cordelia's dialogue by mistake? Especially the "broke a nail" bit.

10. And I loved the next part:

Buffy: Fine. That's okay. I can't put it off any longer. I have to meet my terrible fate.
Giles: What?!
Buffy: Biology.

I can relate.

11. So Xander asks Buffy out and she turns him down. This may be Xander's best scene yet. Nicholas Brendon outdid himself. Writing and acting really meshed, making it one of the most convincing moments we've seen on Buffy yet.

12. And Xander blames Angel for Buffy's lack of interest in him. Huh. Well, one can see why - the situation is hard enough on his ego as it is. And Angel is indeed part of her preoccupation, and part of her reason for refusing him. (Though I think she would have said the same things even if Angel never existed.)

13. Giles says to Ms Calendar, "I don't know if I can trust you." I don't blame him: I don't trust her, either. But I sort of like her anyway, in a non-trusting kind of way.

14. Love the scene where Xander asks Willow to the dance and she turns him down. Great stuff.

15. Giles: "Some prophecies are, are a bit dodgy. They're, they're mutable. Buffy herself has, has thwarted them time and time again, but this is the Codex. There is nothing in it that does not come to pass." How does he know that? My reaction is to be sceptical, but I suppose we're supposed to trust it as true. Anyone who knows the Dame de Doubtance knows that while prophecies may sound true, and may actually be literally true, they're tricky shape-changing beasts who are seldom what they appear.

16. I like the way Buffy turns her fear into anger towards Giles. And I like the way he understands that. The acting from Anthony Stewart Head in this episode is superb. But then, almost everyone is better than usual - better than before.

17. Buffy: "Giles, I'm sixteen years old. I don't wanna die." Awww. Sniff.

18. This seems a good scene to mention this, but... is it just me, or is Buffy particularly attractive in this episode? What's different? She seems sexier and more sharp-edged.

19. Xander said, "I'm just gonna go home, lie down and listen to country music. The music of pain." And then he does. I love it that he does that. Patsy Cline.

20. A wonderful bit of dialogue:

Joyce: Hi, honey. You all right?
Buffy: Sure.
Joyce: Probably just full from that bite of dinner you nearly had.

21. A great Cordelia line: "Obviously, Kevin has underestimated the power of my icy stare." And then they find the boys dead. Yerk.

22. I loved Willow saying to Buffy, "I'm not okay."

23. Yeah, everybody likes Buffy's dress. I don't, particularly - but I like the way it makes her look like a bride, and I like the way she looks in it with the black leather jacket (still Angel's, right?), like an avenging angel.

24. I like Ms Calendar's line, "That's kinda warm and fuzzy for a message of doom."

25. And a climactic, wonderful moment:

Ms Calendar: Well, then we need to warn her.
Giles: I don't intend involving her at all.
Ms Calendar: What do you mean?
Giles: Buffy's not gonna face the Master. I am.

Woo. Moment of impact. Way to go, Giles.

26. This is followed by the most useless thing Giles every said: "I'm older and wiser than you, and just - just do what you're told for once! All right?" He should have saved his breath. I'm sure he knew how useless it was.

29. So Buffy knocks him out. What else is a Slayer to do?

...I would like to make it clear that I actually adore Buffy in this episode. I could even be said to be crushing on her, in a mild and gentle way. But. But. She is so all-over-the-map with her feelings and her angst that I want to either roll my eyes or give her a good shake. You'd think she was a teenager.

..So she comes by it honestly. And she has reasons for moodiness and despair if anyone ever did. Facing death for the cause and all that, and having no choice in the matter at all. Even if she tried to pretend she did for a while.

Or - put another way - she does have a choice, always did, and she made the choice long ago, and because she's Buffy, she goes on making the same choice over and over, and always will.

30. In a episode with all this great characterization, insightful writing and suspenseful pacing, it seems odd that we have at the middle of it the goofy Master and the dullest demon-acolyte kid in the history of boringness. The biology teacher can't even compete.

31. I love it that Xander calls Giles "Locutus of the Borg". Once a fangirl, always a fangirl.

32. Loved this exchange too:

Xander: How could you let her go?
Giles: As the soon-to-be-purple area of my jaw will attest, I did not "let" her go!

33. Interesting that Willow and Xander both seem to think that saving Buffy and saving the world are two completely different issues. Are they missing the big picture here?

34. Xander goes to see Angel to get help in saving Buffy. I am floored. I am thrilled. Xander just went waaaay up in my esteem. And so did Joss.

Stunningly good moment:

Angel: You're in love with her.
Xander: Aren't you?

35. Another good exchange:

Xander: You were checking out my neck! I saw that!
Angel: No, I wasn't.
Xander: Just keep your distance, pal.
Angel: I wasn't looking at your neck.
Xander: I told you to eat before we left.

So it seems that Xander can fairly consistently now make me laugh. I don't know if the change is in me or him. Him, I think; he's a notch more sophisticated, his laughs aren't quite so cheap or so based on bad puns and pointless self-immolation.

36. The Master says to Buffy, "You still don't understand your part in all this, do you? You are not the hunter. You are the lamb." Half of me thinks that's really dramatic. Half of me thinks it's really dumb. Somewhere between the two I'm thinking, "huh?" Buffy's power, like her self-confidence, seems to fluctuate without much rhyme or reason. We know she's a hunter. We've seen it. Is this just the Master trying to demoralize her? Or is there some deeper message - that the lamb is really the hunter, that the tables will turn, that the Master's rhetoric is as empty as his power? Or is it that none of the Master's dialogue is worth anything, however you look at it?

It strikes me that half of the reason I think the Master is so absurd is his make-up. I don't like it: It makes him look silly and ugly rather than scary, and he just can't manage menacing. What would really scare me would be a smooth, handsome, well-spoken demonic type - a master-vampire who looks like Don Johnson or Jamie Bamber. Or even like Jason Dohring in "Moonlight", or - heh - John Simm. Give me such a Master the same dialogue and I might be quaking on the edge of my chair. Why?

Well, mostly because I think the Master looks as silly as he sounds. And I think glamorous vampires are scarier than gross ones.

Angel, for example, is the scariest vampire yet, because I can and do take him seriously.

37. The Master's dialogue is just too faux-pompous. I think I take back some of what I said in the previous comment. Nothing could make his long-windedness scary. I'm more scared of what Buffy will do to herself.

38. And even The Master likes her dress. Groan. Next he'll come out in a feather boa and high heels.

39. Angel can't do CPR on Buffy because he has 'no breath'. Another tick for the checklist of Torchwood dialogue.

40. Vampire fight in the library. I get bored.

41. Buffy gets her nerve back. About time, girl! Go for it! Great moment. Good acting, too. Sarah Michelle Geller is just starting to appear less lightweight.

42. Is that a guest-shot cameo appearance by Cthulhu?

43. Buffy ploughs down vampires in her way. Heh. Love it.

44. Buffy's jokes about "I may be dead but I'm still pretty" and "I flunked the written" are undoubtedly funny (and I laughed) but I didn't like them: I wanted a little more tension here, not a tension-breaker. I think the vampire-fighting stuff is silly enough already. I think I'd be happier if she'd just said one of those jokes, not both. Preferably the second one, because it was funnier.

45. Fruit punch mouth. You know, Buffy put her finger on the whole silliness/weakness of the Master. How can you really fear or respect a guy with red eyes sand fruit punch mouth?

46. You could tell the Master was going to fall on the spiky thing, but I had trouble figuring out what the spiky thing was. The table? I like the weaponry - Giles' sword, and the mallet thingy, and Buffy smashing the Master's bones with it.

47. When the other vampires get staked, they turn to ashes. So why does the Master's skeleton remain intact? Seniority?

48. I love it when Willow says "harsh" as if she really means it.

49. Buffy: "We saved the world. I say we party!" A great motto for her crowd. I like it that Willow is the one talking to Angel at the end.

50. Of course Angel likes Buffy's dress. He's besotted.

Woo - I commented on more than 50 points in this one episode. Did I outdo myself?