Buffy (11/27)
 

"Wrecked" is on. Post your thoughts here.

(Yeah, the date was wrong on the first post. My bad :))

What I think:

I seriously did not like how the events of this episode turned out.

About the Willow story - I felt like I was watching Requiem for a Dream. The story seemed a bit rushed One day, Willow and Amy are both out just looking to have a good time (and Amy was rat just the day before!) and two days later they're sniveling addicts, crashing cars and stealing for a fix. "Rack's place" felt just a little too contrived - could they make the "Magic = Drugs" allegory any more heavy-handed?

Then there's Spike and Buffy. After watching "Smashed" I had a hope that perhaps that Buffy and Spike had a cathartic experience - that they had hit rock bottom, and there was nowhere to go but up. Well, I was wrong. It just made their relationship more twisted; in fact I think they've regressed back to their dynamic post-"Crush".

And their characters seemed to regress in every way. One thing that seemed hopeful for Spike's character was that he was able to care for someone else besides his love interests - namely, the fact that he wanted to protect Dawn. But now it seems he's lost even that; in response to Buffy's worry he only responds with a sarcastic quip, and it seems he's only going with Buffy because of obligation/ulterior motives. I still don't know what to make of this; are we to believe that as soon as the restraints on his mind are relaxed just a little, his selfishness overrides any selfless feelings he had in the past?

Although, perhaps his actions are a result of Buffy's response to their experience. Still, his demeanor and actions are still uncalled for. I don't really believe that Spike loves Buffy - doing that would actually require him to care about her emotions. And how Buffy was at the end of the episode - that doesn't seem the result of love. More of selfish desire.

Tonight ... on an all new Buffy 90210 after school special ...

"Drugs are bad ... m'kay"

I guess I enjoyed this episode, but it was a little too obvious for me. And I REALLY hope they don't plan to wrap up the dark Willow angle right there. I was hoping the final scene would have Willow sit up in bed and close the curtains with magic, but oh well. Amy's also a little too hot ... it's hard to concentrate on the plot sometimes.

das

I'll have to disagree, das. I loved this episode. A little hit you over the head Star Trek style, but I think that might have been done purposely.

I don't need a big bad if they can turn out eps like this. I thought it was amazing. Some people can catch themselves and help themselves. It may not be the end of it, but damn it was good.

The part I'm not caring for is Willow not being a witch or using magic ever again. She was doing some good stuff there for a while. She was helping Buffy and the Scoobies and now to think of her not doing any of that is just completely wrong. I may have to think about this some more.

It was really well done though. Particularly Dawn's parts.

That was one helluva kick little Dawn gave that Demon when they were running away. Slayer power? Maybe not, because that slap in Willow's face was physically pathetic (but I'm sure it got the point across).

If it's an addiction you have to stop completely. I was addicted to drugs once in my life and I would stop and a few days later I would say "one quick hit wont hurt...I won't start again", yeah right. It just doesn't work that way. Once you quit you can't do it again because it reminds you of what you are missing and want so bad and the urge just consumes every molecule and cell in your body until there is nothing else in the world that matters, not even your loved ones, except the drug.

As far as the episode I liked it a lot. I can definitely sympathize with what Willow is going through and I thought that they did a great job portraying it. I think the obvious nature of the episode was intentional because when someone is addicted to something it is completely obvious to everyone except for the person addicted.

Next to the musical this has been the best episode so far this season, IMO.

Rollo - but what we can't forget is Spike's nature. He is basically evil. Love is something different to him. He's a human body possessed by a demon. What we see as love and what he sees as love are two different things.

What we don't know if is either Buffy or Willow will fall off of the wagon.

palebluedot - if it's not presumptious to ask, were you on weed or something serious?

Elektra - Yeah, I understand that Spike is a demon, but his actions in the past seemed to belie something deeper than that. In Intervention, he was willing to be tortured rather than reveal that Dawn was the key. He fought to protect both Buffy and Dawn throughout the whole Glory arc. Even after Buffy died, he stayed and took care of Dawn, patrolled with the Scoobies, etc. He was always willing to be a confidant and whatnot to Buffy since her resurrection. And now, after their little fling, all that gets thrown out of the window. Spike seemed very one-dimensional in this episode - "I want to possess the Slayer". I'm still trying to figure out how this change could be so sudden.

Not presumptious at all. I have nothing to hide about my past indiscretions and I try to help people as much as I can by being honest about it and talking about it. Anyway it was cocaine and heroin...it was the whole life as a musician thing...(great excuse to do drugs right?)

Anyway I don't think we have seen the last of Willow and magic or Buffy and Spike for that matter. It's very hard to quit the first time...

I don't think it was. He was being who he thought she would have wanted him to be. Maybe more like Angel. Supressing his true nature. Would he have done any of this if not for the chip? Now, the chip doesn't work with her and he's back to being her big bad again. Only he still wants her.

I just got hit with the big Blatant Analogy Mallet by Mr. Obvious, Joss Whedon.

Rollo -- it was very rushed.

I really liked this episode. Loved how they started with Tara and Dawn waking up alone and realizing no one came home last night. Indications that both Buffy and Willow were a little out of control that they forgot to look after their family (or in Willow's case "family").

Also, I didn't see it as all of a sudden Willow's an addict- she's been an addict for a while now, just as she said at the end of tonight's episode. She just moved on to harder stuff, perhaps causing her to crash faster than she would've before.

Another nice touch was how Buffy clearly had her own problems in mind during her talk with Willow. Clearly neither have intentions of continuing their behavior, but whether they'll keep those intentions remain to be seen.

I've got to imagine the real test for Willow will be if they get in a life or death situation. It's a little different from the drug analogy, because with drugs, you rarely see a "if you don't shoot up with heroin right now, your friends are going to die," whereas a "use magic or your friends die" might be pretty common in the Buffyverse.

elektra - is this your idea of Joss not doing hit-you-over-the-head Star Trek-type preaching? ;) ;) Maybe this is the problem Rollo is having with it seeming rushed. A real addiction can go on for quite a while at the level we saw in Willow. If this is Joss’ way of portraying her “hitting bottom”, he’s done a piss-poor job of it. Willow makes one large (but not big) mistake and now she’s gonna hang it up? I don’t think so. When Faith hit bottom on Angel, it was real.

Things are not doing well in Buffyland when das isn’t pleased. “I guess I enjoyed the episode” is a pretty low grade from what I’ve read.


CaptainMarvel, a good analogy, but isn't it just a bit too obvious? I mean, if we thought of it... :)

Count me in the 'gimme an Advil' catagory. Not only from the hammer-through-the-head method of metaphor employed by Ms. Noxon (She wrote the ep, so I blame her--plus she's been taking over as Joss has been diverting his attention from Buffy), but from trying to connect the invisible dots between Willow's past magic addiction (addiction to being SuperWillow), and her addiction to being StonedWillow.

Alyson Hannigan can definitely act, though. Even I (hard-hearted, and not likely to care about the girl of late) felt bad for her during the alleyway "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" scene.

I look at as Rack basically raping Willow "magically" while getting her high on it. In essence, Willow became a crack whore for her brief time with Rack in his crib.

Remember the shower scene? We get that scene from when a person gets drugs after having to use their bodies to satiate the dealer. Go watch "Traffic" or even "Requiem For A Dream" for depiction of this type of predicament. And then when Willow swears off magic, at night, in her bed, she gets the shakes, just like a drug addict going cold turkey.

The metaphor of witchcraft akin to drug addiction was pretty well done. It feels great the early part of the addiction, but then the consequences pile on until you can't help yourself, and you hit rock bottom, you jeapordize your relationship with your friends, you lose your self-worth, all for that "high" that fix to get through the pain of lack of self-esteem (Until Willow was ready to go back to normal Willow and put Super Willow aside, she would have kept on that self-destructive path). It took her almost killing Dawn to realize that she's dealing with powers that she can't control. Hopefully she'll be able to put much of this past her, but it'll take a lot of time before Dawn will be able to trust, and Buffy as well.

Amy was reduced to a crack whore at the end of the episode, rummaging for any sort of "magic fix" she could get her hands on. Kind of sad, considering she just spent 2 years as a rat, and goes right back on the "magic" crack train.

Yeah, the drugs analogy was pushed a little too much, including the bad pusher who moves among the shadows.

I did like the parallel with Buffy/Spike though - I guess Buffy's had a habit for the last 4 episodes.

So, the question now is: Is that the end of the evil Willow story? Where do they go from here?

Does anyone know when the next new episode is? I have a bad feeling it isn't till next year....

But that's my problem--She /didn't/ almost kill Dawn because she was using magic. She almost killed Dawn because she was high.

Previously, Willow wasn't addicted to magic, so much as she was hooked on having power. Being SuperWillow. Having the cool witchy girlfriend, raising her dead best friend, saving the day, solving problems. Magic was just a tool to give her control and power.

Warlock-buddy used the same tool, but the effect was different. Willow got high--a physical euphoria almost entirely absent from her day-to-day spellwork. A little bit of power accompanied the high, but so did a total lack of control. The two addictions seem to be entirely seperate.

Then comes the thing with Dawn. The problem is not at all that Willow casts a spell to get dressed in the morning, but that she's doing something that impairs her judgement. Dawn almost gets hurt, and Willow has some sort of weird epiphany. She says she thought she could control her magic, but she was wrong. I don't get it, because the only reason she couldn't, in that situation, was because she was high (The demon-thing, which seems to have been related to the resurrection of Buffy, was so underdeveloped that I'm not even sure how he was killed, so it's kind of hard to figure him into the plot).

So Willow, who's been previously denying the existence of *any* problem is suddenly willing to throw in the towel because of a tangential accident? If she was as messed up as she claims, for as long as she claims, it seems odd that she'd be willing or able to perceive any connection between the accident with Dawn and her normal behavior.

The whole thing just felt like a really rushed, really unsatisfying conclusion to an ongoing story. I've seen (on other boards) some comparisons drawn between this episode and Family, and I can't help but wonder if they're fitting (Family being the episode in which the whole Tara's Past plotline resolved to mix reception). It's also notable because the plotline in Family was resolved in a way different from the original intention, so I've gotta wonder if Willow's arc was originally headed in another direction.

Was anybody else annoyed with the fact that Xander and Anya had maybe five minutes of screen time, or am I the only one?

I guess I just like subtle more. I didn't dislike this episode, but like you said, it was a little too hit you over the head for me.

I don't need a big bad either.

If we take the addiction angle, which previous discussions have established to be my preference, this is exactly what must happen. Perhaps we can draw parallels to alcoholism. The average Joe can have a drink with his buddies periodically with no problem, but an alcoholic has to stop completely. He can't have that one "harmless" drink every once in a while. Once you've gone into addiction territory, you can't go back. You're in All or Nothing Land.

I did find Dawn less annoying than usual.

das

This was what I was about to say in my next post, so I'll just echo it in a reply.

After sleeping on this episode and thinking about it some more, it just doesn't sit well for me. It's almost like a completely separate story. You could really make this episode about Willow doing crack, and it wouldn't change a thing. Her abuse of magic was not addressed. Her addiction to power was not addressed. It was just this specific "magic" that was nothing more than a hallucinogenic drug. Willow has a real God complex problem that's been building for 4+ seasons now. They can't wash it away with 2 days of drug abuse. She has real issues that need to be addressed, and spending a night shaking in her bed from drug withdrawal isn't going to cut it.

But I'll reserve judgment. After the two hour premiere, you may recall that I said I'd be unhappy with the episode if they didn't immediately face serious consequences for their actions. Well, that's how I feel now. If Willow keeps having troubles with being power hungry (not being a crack whore), then I won't mind, but if they expect to wrap all of this up with last night's episode, I'm really disappointed. Willow has a real problem that's deep within her core, and it has nothing to do with Rack (which, gee ... sounds like crack). Last night's episode would be great in another television show or with other characters or maybe earlier in this series. But where they are in the story right now, it clashes. I have no problem with the episode itself, but it just doesn't fit.

das

I find it interesting how the FX Buffy episodes have parallels with current UPN Buffy.

Here's what I mean: In Season 4, Parker charms the pants off Buffy, and totaly wrecks her self-worth when he sees hooking up as a casual thing, while Buffy ascribes something special to it. Buffy is totally a lovesick puppy (until the "Beer Bad" episode when she finally clonks Parker down and gets him out of her system).

Now flash forward to present day, where Buffy is now in the Parker role, where she's desperately trying to use Spike to get a "casual" release from sex (albeit with some of the roughest foreplay I've ever witnessed on TV), all the while knowing that Spike has these tremendous feelings for Buffy, and still goes ahead and uses Spike for sex. The only main difference is that Buffy is sort of disgusted with herself for having sex with Spike, and would be mortified if the word got out that they did the wild thing.

Anyhow, I just thought it was an interesting parallel to try and make.

Oh, best line of the episode went something like, "It's like a meat party going on in my mouth!"

"I may be young, but even I know that came out wrong."

das

Possibly, except Parker wanted sex, because he liked it. Buffy just wants something, anything, to make her feel alive, which is why it's so violent. Still, it's an interesting parallel. I wish they wouldn't play the lovesick card so much with Spike, because it makes more sense to me that he's using Buffy to feel somewhat alive just as much as she's using him. But they're not going that route it seems.

das

My favorite was:

Buffy: "Let's go. Dawn is missing."

Spike: "Again? You really ought to get a lo-jack for that girl."