beginning | blinding torment | boils | lies | making me bitter | evil compounds evil | blah blah bity blah

 

 

 

season three > Graduation Day, Part 2

 

In a brief reprieve from the land of Buffy&Angel4eva-land, the Mayor and his goons kick off this episode while they too-briefly investigate the scene of the Faith and Buffy smackdown. The Mayor, all fatherly worry, freaks out that the evil Buffy has hurt his beloved Faith. And with that our reprieve is over and we're whisked back to Buffy/Angel festival of angst, never an auspicious beginning to an episode, as Buffy returns to Angel's mansion and sends everyone away. They get into a tedious argument - she wants him to suck her blood, he doesn't want to suck her blood, she really, really wants him to suck her blood and he, well, he just doesn't think that would be a good idea so she bitch slaps him once, he vamps out and that's all it takes. Rather easy when you think about it. He was so obviously saying no out of politeness, like the annoying people who won't take the last brownie but who so obviously want the last brownie who insist on engaging you in a battle of manners you don't care to get embroiled in because you really don't give a fuck who gets the last brownie, but they have to go through the motions as if they care if you want the last brownie so their hyperactive consciences will allow them to sleep at night. So Angel, conscience appeased after ensuring that Buffy really really means it when she says she's full and doesn't want the damn brownie, takes the last brownie. What follows is the most drawn out excuse for an orgasm since, well, I don't know when. It's that drawn out. Angel, being the type to lick the bowl and beaters, keeps sucking well after Buffy has lost consciousness. He finally realizes that maybe she's not having as much fun as he is, unclenches and rolls off of her. Such a man.

 

But being a sensitive type guy, he carries her all the way to the hospital and tells them she fell or some such shit. The highly competent emergency room staff cares for the girl who seems to have fallen on a barbeque utensil while the Mayor mourns Faith a few rooms over. She's out for the count, per the doctor, who doesn't seem to wonder why the childless Mayor is at the hospital fretting over a teenage Jane Doe who has recently had the shit beaten out of her. The Mayor overhears the doctors talking about the other beaten down teen and heads off to do some damage. Unfortunately, Angel interrupts the Mayor attempting to kill the unconscious Buffy, because it's totally his job to kill her, and the Mayor leaves after tossing out some shit about Angel and his whore. Man, I miss the Mayor.

 

The Scoobs, alerted by Angel, arrive on the scene and proceed to witheringly rip him a new one. Xander makes digs at Angel's manhood, accusing him of picking on a girl, Giles sort of stares disapprovingly and Willow and Oz just kind of look uncomfortable. They boot Angel out of the hospital and, um, yeah. Memory gets sort of fuzzy here. Hm. Well, Buffy has a dream or a mindmeld or whatever the hell it is with Faith where they're in Faith's apartment and everything's boxed up and Faith gives Buffy all of her stuff including the Playstation and comics, but Buffy doesn't think she can really carry it all, so Faith tells her to take what she needs, touches Buffy's cheek [and tells her to watch out for Dawn! -SP] and Buffy wakes up, crosses over to Faith's room and plants her a big ole chaste wet one on her forehead. She appears to be full of fuzzy feelings for the one she beat the shit out of the night before. Interesting that she seems to have lost all the warm fuzzies by the time Faith wakes up the next season, eh? Sure, there was that whole body switch to get all bitchy about, but what if Buffy had just sort of shown up at the hospital with a nice bouquet and some comics? Would things have gone differently, or would Faith still have slept with Riley in Buffy's skin? Not that it matters. I'm just sort of wondering.

 

The mayor, it turns out, is vulnerable after his transformation, so Buffy, possibly full of borrowed energy from Faith, rallies the troops in the library and devises a military plan of militaristic genius. It's almost as if she, rather than Xander, had been turned into a military person in season two. But since she wasn't, and because the power to cross stitch is not as valuable in battle against a giant snake as bossing people around authoritatively, she appoints Xander key guy. Secretly this was probably more to piss off Angel, but who cares?

 

The entire senior class is successfully enlisted for they amazingly believe the crazy people when they say that the mayor's going to turn into something big and nasty and he's going to eat them if they don't wear a flamethrower under their grad gowns [See? Now you know why the writers had to throw in your favorite scene ever in The Prom with your beloved umbrella! So we the viewers would know that deep down, the whole high school believed in Buffy and knew she protected them and when she told them that the mayor was going to become a big 'ole cgi snake and everyone needed flamethrowers, they wouldn't question it. And they would act sufficiently scared but brave when the time came, know matter how fake that snake looked]. One might wonder where they found enough flamethrowers to arm the front line, but one would be wasting one's time. I'm sure they were in the library cage with all of the bow and arrows, axes, adult-themed books and various other sharp implements used in the final battle. Giles is a librarian who knows the value of a flamethrower and ensures he always has 10 or so handy.

 

An extremely aged looking Cordy (must be the strain of being a name tag person) and Wesley box up books between awkward kisses while Oz and Willow and their assigned peons collect enough fertilizer or whatever it is the recipe for explosives they got off the Internet requires. Buffy, well. She plans, I guess. And has awkward conversations with Angel. And sends her mom out of town. Angel has decided that he's totally leaving town after the battle, and he so means it this time. Really. Seriously. As soon as that new series kicks in, he's so gone.

 

So the ceremony starts, and Willow arrives late because she was busy fucking with Oz some more, literally, and the class gets all pissy because they realize the Mayor's not just going to eat them all for dinner, he's going to make them listen to his entire commencement speech first, the bastard. (which must have certainly mirrored the sense of horror Faith must have felt when she realized that Buffy was going to give her whole speech before the ass kicking could commence. Ironic, no?) Luckily an eclipse interrupts and he has to skip all the boring bits and go straight to the threatening bits. The Mayor starts morphing into a truly craptastic CGI snake that I can only assume was imagined on a much greater scale until Cynthia took up the episode's entire budget with Willow's sweaters and they had to settle on the mildly threatening gardener snake.

 

The front line of defense pops up with their flamethrowers and get down to business and Xander gets his military bitch on. Gay Larry is taken out on the front line [*sniff] while Xander bosses the archers covering the rear and Angel and the jocks menace vampires down below the courtyard. I love that they decided to sacrifice the basketball team and stuff, but really, what good are a bunch of jocks going to be against vampires? Buffy distracts the gardener snake with Faith's knife and leads the gullible powerful demon on a wild goose chase through the school while the gang outside battles the mayor's vampire goons (though it must be noted she waited until after he ate Snyder. *sigh* Snyder.). Buffy leads the snake into the library and leaps out a window so she and Giles can blow it up, with snakey-boy inside. And now is the time when we say good-bye to the mayor. Good-bye Mayor. We loved you. You totally kicked Glory's ass. And Adam's. And the First's. And Spike's, because the memory of Spike was forever tainted when he became Buffy's bitch. And you know what? You were even cooler than the Master. It's true.

 

Giles gets his cheese on and hands Buffy a diploma he somehow saved from the wreckage and Buffy watches Angel slowly back into the convenient mist. The gang takes a breather and congratulates each other on surviving high school and then it's off to the land of casual sex, experimentation and science experiments gone horribly awry. That's right, it's off to college, and that means season four.

 

Bring. It. On.


 

We don't knock during dark rituals?

 

 

 

 

 

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