Buffy 3x13 - The Zeppo

[fajrdrako]

Remember how I don't like Xander much? Well, this is a Xander episode, and I liked it, and I liked Xander in it, and I'm rather glad I did. I'd prefer to like him, I really would.

It all starts out with a fight against demons, and I liked this better than many of the demon fights. Maybe because it started with Willow and a spell. Maybe because it was nicely atmospheric.

1. Good lines:

   Buffy: Willow, you okay?
   Willow: Yeah, I'm fine. Th-the shaking is, is a side effect of the fear.

   Gotta love that girl. I can relate to her. And it occurs to me that one of the reasons I do like her, and one of the reasons I don't like Xander, is that they both have this sort of everyman character, they express fears and frustrations on a very human scale. Buffy doesn't get to quake at the monsters in the dark - they do. I can like and identify with that in Willow, but withZander - I want him to grow up. Perhaps because he's less witty. Perhaps because he's too masculine for me to identify and relate.
   
   
2. I've heard a lot about Buffyisms and the idioms that the show created. I take it that Faith's dialogue, which is sometimes ...idiosyncratic... is another example of this? Or do people in southern California talk like her?
   
   
3. Giles says "Most of my sources have dried up since the Council has relieved me of my duties. I was aware there was a nest here, but quite frankly, I expected it to be vampires. These, these are new." I like that on several counts: I like the sense of Giles as an independent agent, cut off from both the need to obey authority but also from the resources that authority could offer. I like it that he is discovering new things, even if they are new horrors.
   
   
4. Why does Xander say he is 'tip top'. Isn't that a British expression? Or is he saying it for Giles' sake?
   
   
5. Wonderful line from Buffy to Xander: "Maybe you shouldn't be leaping into the fray like that. M-maybe you should be...fray-adjacent." Which by a train of thought makes me think of JossWhedon's graphic novel, Fray. Hmm. Perhaps he just likes the word.
   
   
6. Oooh, Faith in snarky mode: "That was real manly how you shrieked and all." Heh. I like Faith in snarky mode.
   
   
7. Wonderful, wonderful Willow line: "Occasionally, I'm callous and strange."
   
   
8. Xander makes a DC comics joke. Sometimes I really wish this was a character I could love. Why doesn't Spike make DC comics jokes? I know, I know, he was born too early. And Mal Reynolds was born too late. Hmmph.
   
   
9. Xander has a ball-induced confrontation with Jack O'Toole, resident psychotic. Jack is quite... attractive. But not nice. Xander should learn not to make jokes when he's nervous. Let me rephrase that. Xander should learn to to make jokes when he is scared brainless.
   
   
10. Good Cordelia line:

    Xander: Why is it that I've come face-to-face with vampires, demons, the most hideous creatures Hell ever spit out, and I'm still afraid of a little bully like Jack O'Toole?
    Cordelia: Because, unlike all those creatures that you've come face-to-face with, Jack actually noticed you were there.

    This might look on the face of it like yet another Cordelia snark, but it's really rather insightful. Now, maybe Xander is trying to make light of his own fear, but he is surely not stupid enough to think Jack O'Toole is harmless.
    
    
11. I keep looking for special significance in Jack O'Toole's name.
    
    
12. So poor Xander feels the need to prove he's not the Zeppo of the group, not realizing that if you feel the need to prove it, you are the Zeppo of the group.
    
    
13. Oz is usually wonderful but he rises about himself with the cool factor here in trying to explain (or trying not to explain) to Xander what it is that makes him cool. Best bit:

    Xander: I know! You're in a band! That's like a business-class ticket to cool with complementarymojo after takeoff! I gotta learn an instrument. Is it hard to play guitar?
    Oz: Not the way I play it.

    
    
14. Sounds to me as if Giles' research, not for the first time, yields results that sound suspiciously like reading demons' minds. But that's okay. That's good. I like a resourceful Giles. I just wish I was as successful when I tried to research things.
    
    
15. Lovely bit of Venus-and-Mars-communication-gap talk:

    Xander: What do you mean, what is it? It's my*thing*.
    Willow: Your thing?
    Xander: My thing!
    Buffy: Is this a penis metaphor?

    Well, yes, Buffy, actually, it is...
    
    
16. Then Lysette bores Xander, proving (a) beware what you wish for and (b) not all women are interesting.
    
    
17. At least we get to see Angel briefly. On the whole, Xander instead of Angel is a bad trade.
    
    
18. Why was Giles trying to phone the Council? To ask them something, or to warn them? Maybe he should have tried phoning Ethan. Instead he tries the Spirit Guides. Well, why not? Someone should take his calls.
    
    
19. Jack calls his knife 'Katie'. Is this like Jayne calling his gun 'Vera'? Why does Whedon like giving girl's names to weapons? Is this a secret tradition I don't know about? I thought weapons had names like "Excalibur" and "Sting" and "Durandal".
    
    
20. Then Xander wins Jack's approval by not turning him in to the cop. Maybe if I was in Sunnydale, I'd want to lie to the cops too.
    
    
21. So Jack's buddies turn out to be zombies. Probably means Jack is one, too. So why does he go to school? I thought the undead didn't have to. I wouldn't go to school if I didn't have to.
    
    
22. I liked this dialogue:

    Bob: How long I been down?
    Jack: Eight months. I had to wait till the stars aligned.

    Have there been other references in Buffy to astrology? I know timing is often important....Hmm.
    
    
23. And I particularly loved:

    Bob: Whoa! Walker, Texas Ranger. You been taping 'em?
    Jack: Every ep.

    Now, that's friendship. Because I know if someone raised me from the dead and hadn't been recording Torchwood for me, I'd be mightily disappointed.
    
    
24. I also love the coda:

    Bob: All right. We're gonna get the guys together, and we're gonna PARTY, man! It's gonna be a nightto remember!
    Xander: I'm sensing that.

    
    
25. Giles showed very little interest in the zombies - I suppose because Xander was so calm. And didn't tell him.
    
    
26. Willy! I love Willy.
    
    
27. So they rob a store, Willow hugs Xander, and things just get more and more surreal. Xander seems to be growing up visibly. Not that he knows what to do, but he's ... thinking. But before he can come to any conclusions, they're going to initiate him into their zombie club by killing him. Wasn't this inevitable all along?
    
    
28. But Xander can run, and Xander has wheels. Xander rescues Faith. Things start looking good for Xander.
    
    
29. Seems that violence is highly sexualized for Faith. Things look even better for Xander.
    
    
30. Funny line:

    Faith: Just relax... And take your pants off.
    Xander: Those two concepts are antithetical.

    He has a point.
    
    
31. But Faith doesn't go for a lot of conversation afterwards.
    
    
32. Meanwhile Buffy and Angel reach an impasse in fighting over which has the right to be more protective of the other.
    
    
33. Xander has to save the day single-handed. And he does. Nice to see for a change. You understand, this doesn't suddenly turn me into a Xander fan. Hardly. But... it's good to see, and I wish he'd rise above himself more often.
    
    
34. Xander does talk to himself too much.
    
    
35. But I like the way out-talks and outmanoeuvres Jack. He makes a good distinction: "Being blowed up isn't walking around and drinking with your buddies dead. It's little bits being swept up by a janitor dead."
    
    
36. ...And Oz gets Jack. Woo. Oz is cool.
    
    
37. I really hate the tentacled demons. I don't mean 'hate' as in 'fear and horror' I mean 'hate' as in 'not again, this is just so silly'. Tentacled things are better for lunch than for causing creepiness.
    
    
38. I love it that Buffy calls Giles 'brave'.
    
    
39. I like it at the end Xander doesn't feel the need to spar with Cordelia. I wish I could think that the improvements in him will be permanent, but I fear he'll be back to his old self-conscious self next episode.