Buffy the Vampire Slayer S06 E04 – Info Dump

Previously: Shit got real. Or like, more real. Realness on your realness: Buffy was in (a) heaven (dimension) and Sunnydale feels like a hell dimension to her now. Only Spike knows.
—

Flooded

Sweeney: We begin the episode in the Summers Basement, an ominous sounds warn us of Buffy’s foe…which turns out to be a leaky water pipe. Dawn suggests calling a plumber, which Buffy declines. Naturally, the pipes explode in a rather comic book fashion.

Kirsti: Oh, Buff. Don’t use Slayer Strength on the pipes, honey. It was bound to end badly.

Lorraine: Pipes and ice cream machines, remember?

Sweeney: Indeed, though I wasn’t a big fan of the ice cream machine bit. This silliness feels strange but also welcome. Don’t worry, the show will cut that out soon enough. Roll credits.

In the kitchen, the ladies of the house discuss the water situation and move on to Dawn eating breakfast. Buffy zones out, watching the water run out of the faucet in the sink until Willow turns it off. Xander and a plumber emerge from the basement to discuss the very serious and very expensive reality of this situation. Buffy doesn’t get the issue, initially, having been financially taken care of for the bulk of the show and having been too busy with the hellgod trying to murder her sister to sweat it in the few episodes post-Joyce.

Cut to Buffy in the living room looking at a pile of bills. Joyce had a good life insurance policy, but also left massive medical bills and also the mortgage and other home bills, meaning that Buffy is now just about broke. It would have been very easy for the show to just sweep this under the rug, as cost of living expenses are a pretty common way that shows stretch our willing suspension of disbelief, but I’m glad they didn’t. It’s also pretty clear that there are useful plot reasons for them to address it, namely that Buffy is returning to the cold, hard, violent world and it’s not just demons and monsters making it feel impossible for her. Demons and monsters would almost be easier than some of the life stuff she never had to prepare for.

K: Watching this the first time around as a 20 year old, I never entirely grasped the ramifications of all the financial shit that goes down in this episode, and probably would have handled it in much the same way as Buffy does. 30 year old Kirsti was horrified and incredibly grateful for her universal health care. YAY SOCIALISM.

Sweeney: Buffy makes a joke about burning the house down, which does not make the gang laugh. (L: Because everyone knows, “fire bad. Tree pretty.”) (S: I love how many past episodes we’re linking in this post. JUST WAIT, THERE’S MORE.)

Then she tells them to calm down and I swear to you she channels my mother with her, “It’s bills, it’s money, we’ll figure it out, whatever,” philosophy. (The fact that 3/4 of her children grew up to be adults who understand how money works is a miracle. Maybe one day I’ll join the others.) Buffy also reiterates what I just said, adding that if it were the end of the world, it would be easier because she’s great at those.

Lor: All of her comments have this undercurrent of depression and it’s brilliant and hard to watch. She “jokes” about burning it all to the ground and “jokes” about being good at dying, but not living. I want to hug her, which only makes it worse because I’m certain she doesn’t want to be hugged.

Sweeney: YES. All of this. She’s making far more destructive “jokes” than pre-death Buffy would have made, but it’s also very much in the delivery, too. 1430 all around on both the writing and the acting.

Anya suggests that Buffy start charging for the vampire slaying and it makes everyone uncomfortable. Dawn is incredulous about the idea of charging innocent people for saving their lives. It’s kind of hilarious to me now, watching Angel, because they totally managed to work this into a thing there. I feel like they’re sort of mocking the spinoff and it’s a joke I missed the first time around.

K: Excellent point that I ALSO never noticed! And while Anya’s suggestion made everyone uncomfortable, I kind of love her for making it. Much like when no one had any plans for dealing with Glory and Anya was all “How about we use the Dagon Sphere and this magic hammer?” no one else had any suggestions here. It may not be the best idea ever, but at least Anya HAD an idea.

Sweeney: A totally fair point. Unfortunately, Xander is on Team Uncomfortable, which causes Anya to storm out and Xander to chase her. Anya’s frustrated with Xander’s continued secrecy on the subject of the engagement. She asks if he really wants to get married and he hesitates before saying yes. Xander is freaking out because he is also going through the growing up stuff of steady paychecks and moving out of his parents’ house. I sometimes forget, what with Nicholas Brendon being in his thirties, that Xander can’t even legally drink yet. He manipukisses Anya, but she snaps out of it and storms off.

Lor: The red lipstick stain he’s left with is weirdly funny. It almost looks like a Kool-aid smile. Grow-up indeed, Xander.

Sweeney: Cut to a montage of Buffy practicing the things to say to the banker she’s applying for a loan with.

He finally appears and she hands him a folder with everything ever including some old report cards. He hands her most of the stuff back and ultimately points out that her house isn’t worth much, what with Sunnydale’s real estate not being very valuable and she lacks an income. Just as he says, “No job,” a dude is thrown through the glass and across the loan officer’s desk.

After a Not Commercial Break, Buffy puns to the demon who did the throwing, but her kicking range is restricted by her skirt. She gets her hands on a letter opener and cuts it so she can make with the fighting. A security guard shoots the demon, allowing Buffy to make a gun control joke, of sorts. (L: Weird in the context of all the violence of this show. Go buy an axe everyone, BUT DAMN IT, NO GUNS.) The demon gets away and Buffy returns to the loan officer to ask about talking rates.

At Buffy’s training room, she’s punching her bag in the dark while Willow watches and laments the misfortune of his still refusing her the loan. Willow is distracted, though, when she realizes that Buffy is mad. Buffy says it’ll pass, but Willow doesn’t necessarily want it to – “Anger is a good, powerful emotion you should feel.” Willow tries to goad Buffy back into anger by lying about sleeping with Riley and Angel. It’s cute and funny.

When Buffy asks why, Willow explains that since Buffy’s return she hasn’t been “big with the whole range of human emotions thing.” Willow ultimately backs down, though, and Buffy goes back to punching.

K: This scene was kind of painful to me. Willow’s trying to bond, to get their relationship back to the way it was before Buffy died. And even though Buffy thanked her, it still hurts Willow that Buffy’s not her usual chipper self. Buffy’s lack of reaction here just adds fuel to the fire. 

Sweeney: An excellent point. On that note, it’s weird to me how many of you guys started the show here. The consequences for the Buffy/Willow friendship definitely need the past 5 seasons of context to really achieve full emotional impact. But yes, you’re totally right and that’s all I’ll say because there’s a Snow afoot.

Inside The Magic Box, Anya continues to go on with the tell-them-about-our-engagement thing. It’s a struggle, because she talked about it so endlessly at highly inappropriate times that I have residual annoyance. That being said, she’s also not wrong. It should be a bigger red flag, though. I’m frustrated that the conversation so seldom goes beyond “TELL THEM TELL THEM” and into “We have a problem” territory. There was the one chat outside the Summers’ home, and it’s probably safe to assume they’ve had it other times too. It’s just not doing Anya many favors as a character to only keep showing us this part of it.

Meanwhile, Tara and Dawn are having an adorable argument about whether or not Dawn is old enough to participate in the research. Dawn surprisingly skips the argument that Buffy had already been called as the Slayer at 15 and goes for the more har-har-real-world-it’s-like-porn: “If you don’t let me look at the pictures, I’m going to learn everything I know about demons on the street.” This round goes to Dawn; Tara gives her a book. But they bring it full circle, with Dawn asking about a horn which turns out to be what we can only assume is demon penis.

She does, however, find the demon just as Buffy emerges to confirm that the picture is, in fact, the demon she saw.

K: I LOVED Tara’s resigned reaction of “Knock yourself out” when she hands Dawn the book. You can just tell that it’s something she’s been forced to do a lot over recent months, that she’s the one who picked up the responsible parent role while Buffy was busy being dead.

Lor: And Willow busy being self-involved. Sorry not sorry.

Sweeney: This confirmation is interrupted by a noise at the door, which turns out to be Giles. They have a big lovely reunion in which Giles says he can’t quite believe it and Buffy hugs him too hard and OH MY GOD MY EMOTIONS.

K: Especially as this is the first time since she came back that Buffy has looked genuinely relieved since the season started. BRB, SOBBING.

Sweeney: This is briefly interrupted by the Bank Robbing Demon roaming the streets alone. We cut to the reunion resuming in the training room, where Buffy asks him about how England was. Buffy notices that he’s  not all that stoked about the return, confirming that Giles was actually moving on and getting back to the whole “having a life” gig he had before dropping everything to come be Buffy’s Watcher. He asks how she’s really doing and she says something about how sleeping and waking up are a struggle, but otherwise she’s fine. Buffy awkwardly ends the conversation by insisting that she has training to get to.

Lor: I thought she would be honest with him, especially since he was honest with her about his own return. Or, rather, I hoped she would be honest with him.

Sweeney: Agreed. Kirsti is right in that she seemed more at ease in his presence. I really had hoped she’d have been honest with him. He kept her secret about Dawn; she knows she can trust him. All of that being said, she’s still very much convinced that she just needs to keep faking it harder. Another very realistic part of all of this, I should add. There’s a part of her that believes that pretending for her friends, however exhausting, is somehow part of the solution.

Giles returns to the store and Anya hugs him before insisting that he can’t have the store back because they signed papers. At least she hugged him first? They show the demon to Giles and he’s all, “Oh yeah, those guys. They’re mercenaries, so we’re actually looking for the powerful dudebros controlling it.” (I cannot even conjure a mental image of Giles using the term “dudebros.”)

This segue magics us to Bank Robbing Demon knocking some shit over in a basement. The dudebros he is speaking to are sitting in bean bag chairs playing video games. The Epic Nerd Dudebro Trio consists of Jonathan, the former Contextless Wonder; Warren, the douchecanoe robot girlfriend maker/abuser; and a blonde kid who I don’t think we’ve actually met yet, but his name is Andrew. Lor, meet Andrew.

K: We have not yet met Andrew, but Tom Lenk DID play one of Harmony’s vampire minions in the Harriet the Spy episode last season. So if he looks vaguely familiar, that’s why.

Lor: Hi Andrew! I dislike you already.

Sweeney: Anyway, Bank Robbing Demon is ready for them to hand over his promised payment of the Slayer’s head. He also wants to kill them because fighting the Slayer hadn’t been part of his assignment. The Useless Nerd Trio makes with the whining and groveling. They talk up their skills: Jonathan can cast a spell to make him look super cool to the other demons and Warren can make robot girlfriends. They both have the awesome bonus power of providing context to our new friend Andrew, who, as we learn through a stupid exchange, is the brother of the guy who tried to ruin Sunnydale HS prom with devil dogs. I hate nearly everything that’s happening right now, with the sole exception of the fact that I got to reflect on magic memories in Buffy history. Bank Robbing Demon is even less pleased because he doesn’t even like this trip down memory lane.

Lor: This whole scene was so incredibly info dumpy. I can’t even.

Sweeney: One of many reasons to dislike it.

At Chez Summers Buffy is making up the couch for Giles to sleep on, what with him not having a home in Sunnydale. Buffy makes an offhanded comment about the money situation, which she then elaborates on for Giles. They discuss her adjustment period, with Giles mentioning her recent trip to “some unknown level of hell” and my heart breaks again. She shrugs him off and goes to bed when he goes for a hug.

Lor: OW. IT HURTS.

Sweeney: Down in the Useless Nerd Trio’s Basement of Stupidity, the trio discusses the Buffy killing situation. Andrew and Jonathan don’t want to kill Buffy, because she’s hot and also saved their lives a bunch of times. Warren is an atrocious human being so he’s all “#meh.” They vote and Warren loses. He says he’s going to handle the Bank Robbing Demon and does so by quietly slipping him Buffy’s name, address, and phone number before sending him on his way. The other two simpletons, not knowing how Warren got the demon to leave so quickly and quietly, develop a new level of admiration for Warren.

K: UGH. Fucking Warren is the actual worst and deserves everything that’s coming his way #spoilerssweetie

Lor: Lucky for him, that was a very understanding demon who took on a job for payment, and was sent away without payment. Dumb.

Sweeney: In Buffy’s kitchen, Giles is asking Willow about the spell. She’s excited and proud as she recaps all the madness. When she’s finished talking, Giles says, in a Ripper-esque whisper, “You’re a very stupid girl.” Willow’s hurt and confused. He goes on to ask if she has any idea what she’s done, particularly since she is the one he trusted to respect the forces of nature. When he mentions what she’s done to Buffy she gets defensive, still believing she rescued her. “I did what I had to do. I did what nobody else could do.” Giles notes that there are others, but she doesn’t want to meet them.

WILLOW: No, probably not, but … well, they’re the bad guys. I’m not a bad guy. I brought Buffy back into this world, a-and maybe the word you should be looking for is “congratulations.”
GILES: Having Buffy back in the world makes me feel … indescribably wonderful, but I wouldn’t congratulate you if you jumped off a cliff and happened to survive.
WILLOW: That’s not what I did, Giles.
GILES: You were lucky.
WILLOW: I wasn’t lucky. I was amazing. And how would you know? You weren’t even there.
GILES: If I had been, I’d have bloody well stopped you. The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, (even more angry) and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!

BURN. But also, right.

K: I love this because it’s further proof of Giles being the Best Surrogate Parent of Ever. Because sometimes you screw up, and parents get mad and call you on your shit. When you combine Giles calling her an amateur with the Council asking Willow and Tara last season what level of witchcraft they’ve achieved, it really does prove that Willow’s meddling with things she couldn’t possibly understand.

Lor: Additionally, Giles has spent a couple of hours with Buffy and he knows that things are not right. The Scoobies are being so incredibly dense. I love Giles for noticing. I love him for calling her on her shit.

Sweeney: As he leaves the room, she calmly adds, “You’re right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I’m very powerful. And maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to piss me off.” WOW. Willow. Girl. A couple things:

(1) The show has been building the case, for a while now, that Willow is on a whole new fucking level as a witch and that this is affecting her as a person. This moment is not without precedent, but it’s another Big Moment in showing that transition. It’s telling that Giles is concerned and also that she would have this kind of interaction with him. Even as powerful as Willow was at the end of S5, it’s only this Willow, now, that would speak to him that way. There was a steady build across those first 5 seasons, starting whenever Willow first got into magic. This season it has progressed much more rapidly.

(2) I hadn’t considered this on first watch, but a case has been made in the comments that Giles had a responsibility to step in sooner with Willow’s magic. That Giles, upon seeing how powerful Willow was becoming, should have gotten her proper training or done more to set her course. That argument is pretty sound to me. I also maintain, on a related note, that for whatever non-show reasons they did it, Giles had no business leaving when and how he did. All of that being said: he had enormous faith in Willow. I’m conflicted on the argument about how much he ought to have stepped in. He didn’t see Ripper in her. She was Willow and he had a paternal vision of her as the bookish girl who hung out in the library. He saw her as the responsible level-headed one in the trio of demon-fighting teenagers. Was that naive? Yes. All I’m saying is, I get why he dropped that ball and I’m not sure how much I fault him for it, if at all.

K: See, at the risk of pissing everyone off, I’m not sure how much of Willow’s magic Giles actually saw in the past season or so. She did the majority of her spells with Tara in one or other of their dorm rooms, and often either didn’t mention it or told Giles about it later in a “here’s what the outcome was” kind of a way. And for many of those occasions, it would have been easy to put things down to the combination of her power with Tara’s. I’m not saying that Giles is completely guilt-free here – he’s not. Not for overlooking her power or for leaving. I just don’t think it’s a cut and dried case of “He knew she was super powerful and chose to do nothing.”

Lor: I agree with you both, and I think we’re all admitting that it’s a gray situation. It kind of reminds me of those true crimes shows, where the mom is always, “I had no idea my son was a murderer! He was such a good boy!” Sometimes the people you don’t see the clearest are the people you spend the most time with. Parents often see their children as their children, no matter how old (or in this case, powerful) they get.

Sweeney: Right, the three of us, at least, are on the same page here. Giles couldn’t see where this was headed.

Anyway, Willow then tries to shrug that comment off and insists that she doesn’t want to fight. Giles transitions us over to Buffy by saying that they still don’t know where she was and that he’s not convinced she’s emerged undamaged. On the back porch, Buffy overhears their conversation. She stubs out a cigarette and says hello to Spike. She says that their caring makes it so much harder for her. She’s spending so much time trying to be OK to prevent their worrying that it’s just exhausting — which only restarts the cycle of worry. Another beautiful moment in the portrayal of Buffy’s depression. Spike makes a joke about taking them out, which earns him a fraction of a grin from Buffy. She asks why he’s always around when she’s miserable. He notes that this is when she’s alone.

1
K: I love this scene. Not only is Spike the one who’s there when she most needs to talk, he’s the one who won’t expect her to hide how she’s really feeling. He’s the one who can still make her smile, the one who – at this point, anyway – doesn’t expect anything from her.

Lor: Spike is the company that misery loves.

Sweeney: Inside the house, Dawn comes downstairs and Giles is still awake. They discuss Dawn’s plan to mix all the cereal they have, but are interrupted by the Bank Robbing Demon breaking into the house. He grabs Dawn, but is quickly seized by Buffy, punning that he’s paying for the door. They fight and Buffy panics with each bit of damage to the house. Spike appears and she’s giving him lots of directions about where she wants to fight the demon, because HELLO, DAMAGE. She gets him into the FLOODED (STAR FOR ME) basement. Eventually she gets hold of some pipe and murders her a demon with it.

Lor: In a very, “no wire hangers!” fashion.

Sweeney: She then eyes the spot in the pipe that she fixed before (from whence her murder pipe came). Spike then appears halfway down the steps. “Woah, did you know this place was flooded?” Damn. I thought I was going to get to keep that. Oh well:

From the Summers Basement to the Basement of Stupidity, where the Useless Nerd Trio is talking about all the money and power and awesome and STAYING UP ALL NIGHT they have. Jonathan adds, “Hypnotize Buffy!” to the top of their whiteboard To-Do list. Then they have more conversation that I don’t care about because I hate them. Confirming my hatred is Jonathan lighting a dollar bill on fire. FUCK YOU AND YOUR LIGHTING MONEY ON FIRE!

Lor: WE ARE POOR NON-PAID BLOGGERS. THIS EARNS YOU A FIRM GTFO. (Even if you starred in the most awesome opening credits of all time.)

K: A+. I have a weird soft spot for Jonathan (and Andrew) because of past and future events, but at this point in time, I would be happy if he accidentally set the entire basement on fire and killed all three of them. 

Sweeney: Speaking of money problems, everyone is in the living room at Chez Summers trying to fix the many broken things and Anya brings up the charging thing again. “No! I will definitely … probably not be doing that.” Buffy really wishes she knew who hired the demon and Willow suggests doing a locator spell, but backs down when Giles shoots her a disapproving look. Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya go outside to trash things.

Buffy, still staring at bills, says that she can’t do this. Giles assures her that she can and that her mother did it all the time without supernatural help. I guess he missed the memo at the beginning of the episode that Buffy would be relieved if this problem had a supernatural element.

The phone rings and Buffy goes into the kitchen to answer it.

K: I have an “It’s like looking into a mirror, only not” moment when the phone rings because Buffy looks around the room and says “Who’s calling me? Everybody I know lives here.” 

Sweeney: Dawn thinks it’s creditors. I know that feel. She nonchalantly asks Giles if they’re going to starve. Before Giles can finish his incredulous reaction speech, Buffy returns to reveal that the call was from Angel. She’s visibly a bit shaken and insists that they both have to see each other somewhere between there an LA. This annoys me because I think it means we’re being denied crossover magic. Damn it. Rude.

Anyway, Buffy thanks them for helping and rushes out the door. Roll end credits. I’ve said most of the things I want to say about this episode, but I would just like to add, once more for emphasis, that I hate the trio.

 

Next time: The Trio continues to fuck with Buffy’s life. Find out how on Buffy the Vampire Slayer S06 E05 – Life Serial