From The Morgue

I’ve been pretty useless about mentioning episode writers in these things. Probably the main reason is that the kind of analysis I’m doing – reverse engineering the underlying story structure of whole seasons – works best if you pretend Buffy is an expression of a single harmonious vision rather than the result of a bunch of creative people pushing and pulling on ideas with frenzied showrunner Whedon putting his hands on everything and mostly pulling it all into the lines he wants. But even so, it’s worth shining some light here on Marti Noxon. She will become a crucial figure in the Buffy story, and a fairly controversial one (her twitter bio: “I ruined Buffy and I will RUIN YOU TOO”). She’s written a bunch of episodes this season, starting up with the What’s My Line duo, but they’ve mostly been unpromising assignments – weirdo misfire Bad Eggs, water-carrying setup episode Surprise, and last-minute fill-in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. This is another placeholder ep, marking time between Passion and the season finale, but (unlike last week’s offering) it finds some very fruitful space to explore, and I think here’s where Noxon’s voice really cuts through for the first time.

The episode is a ghost story, continuing the process of the show working through the classic monster repertoire for its non-vampire non-demon stories. Given Buffy‘s emphasis on emotional consequence, it might seem odd that they’ve waited this long – after all, what is a ghost but an emotional consequence that can throw things around the room? But ghosts are actually not a straightforward fit for the show because they don’t metaphor easily. A ghost story is stubbornly literal about its emotional content.

The genius of this episode is that it chases that literality right down the rabbit hole. The ghosts in the story are two dead lovers who died in an (apparent) murder-suicide and possess people to repeat the tragedy over and over, unable to find closure. The story works its way to an astonishing conclusion where the ghosts possess Buffy and Angel, forcing them to re-enact a tragic, doomed love affair, a situation that echoes their own tortured story. This is the perfect inverse of the usual metaphor-monster approach but it works just as well. (It also cleverly takes the meta approach that is the show’s hallmark down a level; instead of having the show’s characters making subtle comment on the story they are part of, we have Buffy & Angel’s relationship commenting silently on the ghost’s story.)

It’s a very clever set of moves to make, and yes it does load up the melodrama that will become a Noxon trademark, but she absolutely nails the heart of the story, finding a new way to examine the Buffy/Angel romance and make the characters (and us) feel the pain of its loss. When the ghosts find their peace, and Angel is released from the spell, he simply reels from the experience and flees. It’s a completely convincing moment, and thematically powerful.

The episode also tracks a very important subplot where Giles attributes the haunting to Jenny, until Willow forces him to admit to himself that it couldn’t be her. His grief is palpable throughout, as is the deep compassion shown to him by the other characters, and his acceptance that it isn’t Jenny is a gentle, crucial step in his process of moving on. This also perfectly fits in with the show’s method of resolving the problem of Jesse – Giles has to show the emotional wounds he suffered from Jenny’s awful fate, but through the love of his friends he is guided towards peace.

In fact, the whole episode in a sense echoes this solution to the problem of Jesse. The haunting takes place because the ghosts cannot move past their emotional anguish, and they are only released when they find a way to continue their scene past its usual end point (because undead Angel is not killed by the reenacted murder) and they are able to forgive each other. Love and acceptance are the answer. Buffy spends the whole episode seeing herself in this situation and refusing to forgive herself, and we know she can’t resolve these questions until she does confront Angel face-to-face. Her final scene in the episode makes a marvellous choice of showing she’s been affected profoundly by the experience, but refusing to draw it into some kind of pat lesson:

Buffy: A part of me just doesn’t understand why she would forgive him.
Giles: Does it matter?
Buffy: No. I guess not.

It all comes together as a superb and unexpected way to highlight these themes and this relationship before things come to an awful end. The episode isn’t flawless – the other aspects of the haunting (snakes, wasps, an arm in a locker) feel completely out of place – but its emotional heart is fierce and true. And that feels like Noxon to me.

Other thoughts:
* Great to see Snyder again, and to reiterate his awareness of the supernatural truth, complete with portentous namedrop of “the Mayor”.
* Willow gets some huge moments in this episode, where she for the first time steps into the world of magic. I’d forgotten how directly her movement into magic was attributable to Jenny’s “technopagan” identity.
* The episode’s final reveal is marvellous too – this show has such confidence it can give an episode ending to a bad guy secretly standing up, and it WORKS.

Buffy has been *roaring* along, building momentum and confidence and impact to such a height that last week’s episode slammed into the viewer like a freight train. And to follow that – well, here’s the thing. The writing team have been using a long-form storytelling strategy where you take the 22 episodes of a standard US network TV season, and you treat those like chapters of your story. You put your pieces in place in the first chapters, you tighten the noose and build to a strong midpoint confrontation that foreshadows the rest of the story, then you put your big switch-up reversal to reveal a whole new horrifying challenge. Then you build up that new horror in intensity until it hits a peak of awfulness, and then you ride the inevitability of that right into climax mode.

Up until now, it’s all worked beautifully. Sadly, the plan squeals off the tracks right here. In a 22-chapter story, chapters 18, 19 and 20 can focus on building up to the climax, drawing all the threads together and preparing the ground, but in a serialised TV series, it doesn’t work like that. The show has found itself with three episodes to fill in before it can allow the final conflict to happen. Each episode has to be a unit of storytelling in its own right, not just buildup to the end, and while you can make an episodic story do that build-up work, it’s not easy.

So we have Killed By Death, with the unenviable task of explaining why Buffy has to have a few more adventures when she has every motivation to bring this whole saga with Angel to an end. It stalls for time in the most shameless way possible: Buffy suddenly gets sick. And the point is underlined not just by having Xander say “you’re too sick to fight Angel”, but having Angel turn up himself to demonstrate the same.

So the viewers, like Buffy, are forced to go to the hospital when they’d rather be doing something else.

The show drops Buffy into a spooky situation where there’s a monster stalking sick children. We’re kept off-balance by some ER-style handheld camerawork and a weird flashback sequence to Buffy as a child, where it’s hard to even work out that the child we see is young Buffy. This leads to a tragic backstory revelation: Buffy’s cousin was killed by a monster years ago,

The backstory feels very out-of-place in the greater Buffy mythology. That’s because it jars with the kind of ongoing, iconic comics-continuity narrative this show employs. The revelation that the monster killed her cousin
when they were both children belongs to a different kind of story, a filmic self-contained structure where the protagonist is intimately connected to the horror and overcomes her emotional wounds through the cathartic act of defeating it. It is no accident that we never hear about Celia or Buffy’s extended family ever again.

This is the second time an episode has focused on a threat to children, and like Nightmares, it doesn’t marry up with the thematic interests of the show. (Giles’ line “Well, sometimes small children *do* see something we adults don’t: us. Our true selves, our, our… our hidden faces.” is perhaps the low point of the whole season.)

Overall the episode is just out of alignment with where Buffy is at by now. The proof is in the resolution of the threat. I can just imagine the story conference: “Look, maybe she just punches him so hard he dies and that’s the end,” and everyone shrugs in resignation. They have two more episodes to fill in before they can get to the next part of the real story. D’oh.

Other thoughts:
* SMG continues to show unexpected versatility. Her ravings are genuine and quite moving.
* The showdown in the hospital, Xander vs. Angel, is simply superb. Xander is really working as a character at last.
* But the show’s MVP right now is Cordelia. They have her character down now, and she is extremely useful for storytelling – she drags subtext into text with great efficiency, and that makes it much easier for the show to play its tricks of subvert or outmaneuvering that messaging. She’s instant laughs, instant sexy, instant pathos, instant plot. She rules.
* I LOVE the final scene where Buffy, Xander and Willow are all insensitive teens to Joyce. Charming.

When She Was Bad: “Buffy cannot do this alone. She needs her friends, so her friends are part of her fight, and yes, she won’t always be able to protect them. That’s the deal she makes – the deal we make – with the show.”

Innocence: “Angel in the rain, as he was at the start of the episode. Now you/Buffy are ready. Now you can fight. And you defeat him, but you can’t kill him yet. You let him go, knowing he will kill again. You have no choice, because to kill Angel would be to tumble irrevocably into the problem of Jesse.”

From the first seconds of this episode you know it will be bad. We see Buffy and Xander dancing as friends, their relationship anxieties settled after the shakedown of the previous episode. We see Willow and Cordy chatting as friends, their friendship starting to bloom, also after the previous episode. They seem happy. Then we see that Angel is there watching them.

And then, awfully, we hear Angel’s voice.

We’ve had Buffy lose her position as protagonist before, in The Dark Age, when Giles seized control of the narrative and held on to it for most of the episode. But this, putting us inside Angel’s head from moment one – we know this is a lot worse. Because the rules of television are inexorable. If someone narrates the beginning of an episode, they will narrate the end of it. Angel has us in his power.

He makes us watch Buffy in her bedroom, her safe place. And as we watch her, she checks the window, she settles down to sleep, and there’s a fade transition that suggests we’ve moved to her perspective. She’s the title character, grabbing her rightful control of the narrative. We can breathe out.

But it’s a bait and switch. Angel is in the room. There is no escape.

Angel – Angelus, really – has already threatened to reach outside the bounds of the narrative and harm the viewer. Here he follows through on that threat, kidnapping us, forcing us into his head, controlling the editing and the framing of the episode so we have to listen to his words and see the world through his eyes. He owns this story. He’s been waiting for this.

The credits play, storming Buffy back into the narrative, and the Scoobies have a war council in the library. But Angel has upset the balance: ordinary students come in wanting books. The bubble of narrative expectation has been punctured. Since the beginning we’ve recognized that this show features real threats, but that promise has continually struggled to assert itself against the structures and expectations of weekly action-adventure television. Those structures can’t be relied on, because Jonathan’s in the library.

As if sensing that the structure of their narrative is shifting, Buffy and her friends start pushing back themselves. One of the cardinal rules of vampires is the power of invitation: but if there’s magic in the world, then that rule can be chucked out the window, right? That’s just using one narrative device to take down another.

Buffy tells Joyce that Angel is threatening her, and the metaphor is abruptly altered. Back in Innocence, Angel was the cool boy who sleeps with the girl then mocks her for giving in to him. Now, he’s the ex-boyfriend who won’t let go. The scary one. Like the first metaphor, this one is far too familiar for too many women. Ex-partners who commit violence against the woman who left them – this is such a well of sorrow I can’t bear to even allude to real cases. This is the darkest metaphorical territory we have yet entered through this show. Angel, again, reaching out of the show to hurt us. And inside the show, Angel counters Buffy’s attempt to seize the narrative by telling Joyce they had slept together, forcing Joyce to assume a direct parental role – something she usually doesn’t have space to do. Whatever Buffy and her friends do, he is ready with a way to hurt them right back.

Buffy doesn’t stop trying. She speaks with Jenny. The show wants them to be enemies or to be friends, because that’s how narratives usually work, but Buffy doesn’t submit to this distinction. She doesn’t forgive Jenny, but she gives her permission to be with Giles anyway, ignoring what the structures of television narrative would expect of her. The show is breaking into pieces all around her and she’s trying to make her people as strong and safe as she can.

Jenny. Such a fun character, a rulebreaker from her first appearance as a “technopagan”, a provocateur to counterbalance Giles, a passionate but still cerebral figure who in a way unites the best features of the entire rest of the Scooby gang. And she’s trying to break the rules again here – trying to restore Angel’s soul. She’s a minor character, not even in the opening credits, and there’s no way a standard TV narrative will let her do this. But she cracks it. She breaks the code, translates the ritual, saves it on a floppy disk, all in time for her romantic rendezvous with Giles.

But Angel controls this narrative.

The chase through the school is shot differently to anything we’ve seen before now. We’ve seen other chase sequences in Sunnydale High, but this one just keeps going. It slowly becomes clear, we’re not in a TV show any more – we’re in a movie where women get hunted down and killed.

Jenny runs right into his arms.

~

Angel has held the narrative all episode and used it to thoroughly violate the show, to finally demonstrate what it means to have “real threat”.

Now Buffy can kill him.

Other notes:
* The magic shop is great: “Oh, you’re in the trade!”
* The phone call where Buffy and Willow are told by Giles that Jenny is dead is utterly heartbreaking. Willow’s breakdown is hard to watch. In the whole seven seasons of this show, this moment affected me the most, and it’s a scene I will never forget.
* There’s a common story online saying Jenny was only chosen to be Angel’s victim when Oz became a fan favourite. I can’t find any source for this but it’s on wikipedia and the Buffy wiki among other places. Count me as unconvinced – Oz hasn’t even had a connection with the Scoobies until just a few episodes ago, and I find it hard to believe that lengthy buildup to set up Willow’s boyfriend would be followed by immediately killing him to traumatise Willow. Giles is a much more sensible character to carry this trauma, and Jenny is a character who is much closer-to-home for the Scoobies as a group. So I think this is probably just fan theory, or someone on staff misremembering. I might be wrong of course, but I can’t find anything authoritative on this.

So your writing team have been knocking it out of the park – taking risks, gaining attention, turning all the right heads. The show is surging into the zeitgeist, and the world is starting to notice. Suddenly there’s proof of how well things are going: the star of the show is booked to host Saturday Night Live. Quick, writing team! We need a new episode with no Buffy in it, and we need it now!

This is the episode they come up with, and it’s the biggest proof you’ll get that Buffy was on a roll. They produced not a filler episode, but an important, funny character piece that is remembered fondly as one of the better episodes of the entire series. That just doesn’t happen unless you’re in the zone.

So, following an episode examining the perils of masculinity, we get an episode examining… the perils of masculinity. This time, however, the show turns its attention to a different flavour of Buffy man: Xander Harris, who remains something of an unsolved puzzle.

In typical Western storytelling modes, different characters usually embody different approaches to problems and challenges, and I’ve previously suggested that Xander embodies “instinct”. Following your instincts is an important problem-solving approach for anyone, but especially for teenagers, and so a character with this approach is essential for the Buffy ensemble. Unfortunately, the show is generally down on the efficacy of instinct. It’s a nerdy show where part of the fun is being wrongfooted by the twisty plots. In the narratives deployed on this show, it’s very easy to use ‘instinct’ for comedy beats.

Instinctual responses are also useful to generate conflict when a protagonist needs to take a risk – “instinct” tends to be conservative, associated with “common sense”. Witness the somewhat odd spectacle of Xander being the one who maintains his resistance to Buffy’s relationship with a vampire, while the more cerebral Willow and Giles quickly fall into line. In a show with a vested interest in upending received wisdom, this usually puts Xander in the wrong.

As if that wasn’t enough – in this show, gender is very much under the microscope, and masculinity is often a source of frustration. An “instinct” character who happens to be male will also easily fall into the role of expressing objectionable male instincts and assumptions. This was a role Xander assumed in The Pack, where he became a way for the show to talk about sexual power and its abuse.

So with these three complicating factors more potent than ever as the show enjoys a golden run of quality, it’s interesting for the show to look a little closer at Xander. Of the core characters, his character arc has been the most patchy and uncertain. Willow has clearly blossomed into greater self-confidence and autonomy; Giles has changed his perspective on his responsibilities and his relationship to Buffy; and Buffy herself has come to terms with her duty and assumed the mantle of power. Xander, however, has had a series of small triumphs quickly reversed into humiliations, and while his heroic instincts and indeed his courage have strengthened he continues to fail to apply these in any consistent way. The obvious direction to take Xander is to give him some control over his circumstances, and that means addressing his continual downfall: his relationships with women.

There’s lots going on in this particular kettle of weird fish. Xander’s “girl trouble” arises from his general sense of inadequacy and tendency to overcompensate; his expectations of and assumptions about women; his habit of speaking without thinking; and many, many other happy contributing factors. Xander is a deeply flawed character. However, at this point in the show’s narrative, the writing team are working hard to show him in a redemptive light. He does keep trying to do the right thing – to rise above his limitations. His moments of heroism have never quite been able to eclipse the entitlement and poor judgement that typify his behaviour, but consistently, when he does find a clear and noble path, he commits. He represents, then, another important archetype of all storytelling: the sinner who keeps trying for redemption.

This comes out very clearly in the inciting incident in this episode, where Xander buys Cordelia a locket and tries to be honest with her about what’s happening between them. It’s a brave move, and one he’s uncertain about, but it’s also unquestionably the right thing to do. The audience can’t help but get on side with him here.

Unfortunately, Cordelia dumps him, and Xander immediately does something unspeakably awful, and all of that viewer identification and goodwill gets set on fire.

This is his role. He’s instinct, specifically a male instinct in a female-voiced narrative. He is going to screw up, and those screwups will reproduce the gendered biases at large in our world. To be blunt: Buffy is invested in taking on rape culture, and Xander is the best vector they have for bringing that on-stage.

Xander’s crime is to blackmail the witch Amy to enchant Cordelia so she’ll love him, giving him the power to break up with her and devastate her emotions. It’s a terrible thing to do, and though the show takes care to draw boundary lines around his intentions (specifically, he makes clear he doesn’t intend to use magic to rape her) it doesn’t soft-pedal the ugliness of his actions.

The use of Amy the witch as an instrument is interesting, however. She returns here for the first time since Witch (another instance of the show’s delight in recurring minor characters), and her engagement in Xander’s revenge is a reminder that this show does always speak with a female voice. The spell she casts ends up making all the women characters lust after Xander, but it reads to me as a very female-friendly take on that particular male fantasy. In fact, once you dial out a bit, this episode is revealed as a remarkable showpiece for the many diverse female characters of the Buffy world, and while the episode is unmistakably a spotlight for Xander, it is equally unmistakable that the hero is Cordelia.

Cordelia doesn’t get to lead the story, because the story is all about the weird experiences of Xander Harris. However, the character arc is hers. The story happens because of her crisis of self-belief and consequent bad decision, and it tracks her movement to a place where she can reverse that decision and lay claim to her true identity. Xander doesn’t get that kind of arc. He makes an awful decision and pretty much immediately realises it was an awful decision. For the rest of the story he’s just coping with the mess he’s made, which is very entertaining but doesn’t make him the protagonist.

Cordelia’s return to focus also means it’s time to bring back another recurring player, Harmony Kendall, who reigns supreme on the mean girl throne she claimed back in Out of Sight Out of Mind. Cordelia’s secret hookups with Xander are now common knowledge, and Cordy’s status with the in crowd is in the toilet. That she decides the best way to fix this is by dumping Xander and trying to hold on to her established identity is entirely understandable, even though it’s obviously the wrong option. Cordelia, after all, is the narrative’s truthteller, but here she can’t even bear to tell the truth to herself. She’s found out by the magic spell, which doesn’t affect her because the magic knows the truth even if she doesn’t – she’s in love with Xander. (Note that this is the second time a big magic spell hasn’t affected Cordelia – she evaded the madness of Halloween by shopping upmarket – underlining her association with truth and authenticity.)

The episode concludes with Cordelia choosing Xander, choosing truth, and choosing the Scooby Gang nerd vampire life over whatever she had before. Her final duty in the story is to pass judgement on Xander. The show, as noted above, is set to make Xander screw up a lot of times, and forgiving him will get more and more difficult each time, but he’s not yet too far gone. In Xander’s favour this time – he very quickly figures out what’s going on and doesn’t hesitate in confessing to Giles, whose absolute disgust makes clear the degree of his failure, as does Willow’s refusal to talk to him after. The episode sticks the landing on this, I think – “You came through. There might just be hope for you yet.” says Buffy – but it’s Cordelia’s acceptance of him, flaws and all, her empathy and love, that allows him to carry on.

Other thoughts:
* This episode has some standout gags – barricading the door only to reveal it opens outwards, and Willow’s “Force is okay!” comment is just the first hint of hidden depths…
* Likewise, Spike wondering what rhymes with lungs plays very differently after some later revelations about his origins as William the Bloody.
* The “suddenly, Angel!” instant threat move continues to work brilliantly.
* Oddly, this is the second time in recent weeks that Jenny has attempted a seduction while not in control of herself. She’s past due for a big spotlight episode to give her some dignity at last. Maybe next week?