beginning | blinding torment | boils | lies | making me bitter | evil compounds evil | blah blah bity blah
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season two > what's my line part two
Note: There were a few things I did not work into the What's My Line part 1 review. To make up for this, I would like us to take a few moments to appreciate a few things that were left behind in my desperate effort to keep it under 100 paragraphs. First, I would like us to take a moment, maybe two, to appreciate angry, evil Spike in these episodes. And then, if we've got time, let's just marvel at the chemistry between James Marsters and Juliet Landau. Fabulous.
Moving on, I'd like to ask that everyone just sort of sit and…marvel at the quirkiness that is Oz. He brought us E flat to diminished 9th, stoicism and monkeys in pants. Oz and Spike, the lost men of Sunnydale, we salute you. And beg you to come back. And we're done.
Our nostalgia waning, we return to the chick fight, sadly reduced now to posturing and truce calling. Kendra foolishly agrees to go with someone she was just trying to kill. Why Kendra would believe that this person she thought was evil enough to kill five seconds ago had a Watcher when she was raised to believe there is only one Slayer, and that currently is she, is beyond me. But we're going to overlook it. Just like we're going to overlook the fact that a girl from a tiny town in Jamaica, given up by her parents as an infant and raised as a Slayer-in-training, would own only one shirt and that the one shirt would look like that. We have many things to overlook. I am confident we can do so.
Could you stop with the Slayer thing, I'm the damn Slayer!
In the library, Kendra, seemingly not on guard at all, is quizzed by Giles. We can tell Giles is upset by the way he fiddles with his glasses, a trait sorely missing in the first half of this episode, by the way. If you cared. Which you don't. Anyway, Buffy is delightfully snarky, and shades of her single-child syndrome shine through brilliantly. Giles has heard of her Watcher, Mr. Zabuto. He is apparently well respected. Who knew? This all just brings up tons of unwanted questions that will never be answered: How many watchers are there? How disorganized are they, if they don't even know that Buffy is still active? How the hell did the Watcher's Council know that Kendra was a potential slayer? If Kendra is sent out in the field, why isn't Buffy? Can't Giles sense great danger? How the hell does Kendra know what a cheerleader is? Once again, issues. Which we will ignore. Thank you.
So, where are we? Buffy and Kendra and Giles are in the library, soon joined by a flurry of colors so offensive it can only be Willow. Xander and Cordelia, who I almost entirely left out of the first half, my bad, are trapped in Buffy's basement. (to recap: Cordy was called to drive Xander, since they've needed a car so many times before, to Buffy's house to look for her after she took off at that leisurely pace. Cordy let in the scary make-up salesman, who is evil. Of course. He sells make up. There's no way he couldn't be. Anyway, Xander and Cordy run when the sales man breaks down into a bunch of millipedes, or something resembling millipedes. Why they are afraid of tiny bugs they can step on, and later do, is beyond me.) and Angel? Dear Angel. Angel is still trapped in the flimsy cage-of-no-excuse,the bicycle lock unbrokenm, hiding from the sunrise. The sunrise that is apparently still going on, even though everyone else is in school.
So, like, let's break this down to the important parts, okay? Cordy, turned on by Xander's masterful use of duct tape when keeping the millipedes out of the basement (I see I wasn't the only person raised on McGuyver) ends up making out with him in Buffy's basement. They eventually escape, hose Cordelia down and make it to the library to, you know, do Scoob stuff. Angel is dragged through the direct sunlight by Willy to the sewers, where he is taken by Spike. Spike delivers him to Drusilla, who likes her kinks with vanilla. Buffy and Kendra attack Willy in a poor attempt to get information that is actually a set up on both sides. A lame set up, but there you go. What can you expect from a Slayer with roots that bad and another Slayer with only one shirt? Exactly. Somehow Willow uses her computer to track down all the churches in the city, and if any of them are closed, and somehow from that they find out where the ritual is to be. Or maybe they just followed Kendra who followed Willy who led Buffy to her supposedly early grave.
I have to ask. Has either of you girls considered modeling? I have a friend with a camera -- strictly high-class nude work. You know, art photographs, but naked. You don't have to answer right away.
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Bite your tongue! They used to eat cake, and eggs, and honey, until you came and ripped their throats out. |
A poorly thought out fight ensues, wherein everyone's stunt doubles are glaringly obvious (just take the time to mock Spike's stunt double. Loudly. The hair is wrong. The face is wrong. The entire build is wrong. It's horrible. It's more offensive than Buffy's chest being 3x it's normal size in the fight scenes. It's that obvious.) and it's blocked in such a way where you can virtually hear the director yelling "okay, ASH, you in first. Now, aly, just stand there….hang on…wait for it…wait for it…okay, now. Enter now. Now Xander…hang on…let's space this out 5 seconds or so…hang on. There are too many of you moving in the frame! Stop it! Stop it! Just Giles and the vamp now! I'm serious! Stop moving, folks!"
The Scoobs prevail, of course. Goodness and light and blah blah blah…So they fight. They win. The hit taken out on Buffy is somehow called off, though I can't really see a bitter Spike calling it off or the psycho Tarakans just giving up, considering Giles dooms-day speech about how they come and come until the job's done, and Drusilla gains enough strength from the perfunctorily cheesy ritual to carry the severely damaged Spike home.
There's more, of course that happens. But if Marti can admit in the commentary that really, a lot of the ep is filler, why the heck should I care?
Well, the E flat, it's doable. But it's-it's that diminished ninth, you know. It's a man's chord, and you could lose a finger.
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