Re: When Buffy went Crazy

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

DEM wrote,

>Are you much into scene analysis?

I never learned to formally do that, but you've given me an
easy-to-understand model. Yep, Spike completely flipped Buffy's
attitude, and he funked the charge ("make sure she drinks it all")
Willow specifically gave him. He was told what to do to help Buffy,
and he chose not to do it.

>Willow?seems to shy away from getting too intimate.

I've been saying that the physical distance is supposed to reflect the
emotional distance, so hopefully, post-epiphany, this won't be a
problem. And they both did initiate physical contact at separate points
in the ep, so the trend is at least positive.

I also think there's supposed to be a little compare and
contrast--where Spike is a bastard who exploits Buffy's emotional
state, Willow's desire to nurture Buffy has somewhat enabled it. But I
think the very end, where Willow is telling Buffy to sit and let her
take care of things, and Buffy refuses to until she takes the antidote,
is meant to show that Buffy is now strong enough to stand on her own,
which, paradoxically, will allow for greater intimacy (because Will
won't have the awkwardness of dealing with emotionally-fragile, china
doll Buffy).

>Why was Tara in the last scene?

Because they didn't want to blow one of Amber's appearances on a
ten-second, non-speaking part in Act 1, and ep 18 is rumored to feature
her more strongly, so they wanted to set her place (not Buffy's inner
circle, but closer than Spike) in our minds.

Having said that, yes, she was totally unnecessary. It smelt of
coincidence and there was no reason why Willow couldn't have gotten free
some other way. If, say, while Xander was fighting the demon, she was
intercut rubbing up against a nail, like Wesley with the knife in "Five
By Five", it would have been much more dramatically effective. (Or she
and Dawn could have gotten back-to-back and untied each other's bonds,
perhaps.)

And there was no real resolution to the W/T conflict in the scene--we
may think she came to make things right with Willow for the campus
mix-up (TWO DAYS after Act 1, btw), but we really have to see that; if
18 opens with W/T having put that behind them, it'll be a cheat.

(Actually, it doesn't speak well that Buffy huddles in the corner,
hardly able to bear the demon's assault on W/D/X, but she herself
physically attacks Tara. Maybe they were trying to emphasize the
difference in Buffy's attitude, for some reason? Perhaps we'll soon
see.)

Dan