What's My Line Part 1 Thoughts:

What's My Line part 1 thoughts:

MR GORDO! And Angel can't help playing with him. Someone should really get that guy some plushies of his own - you know he'd love cuddling with them.

Angel: "It's career week." Buffy: "How did you know?" Angel: "I lurk." Angel:

God, he's such an awkward, pathetic disaster [affectionate]. And he knows he is! When he's with Buffy, he's just fumbling around, trying to sound vaguely person-like. But because he's big and quiet and vampiric, everyone interprets his awkwardness as badass brooding.

Buffy says ACAB. Honestly, this subplot is just reminding me how how pre-9/11, the view of cops as corrupt, lazy and/or violent was pretty standard across pop-culture. (I'm currently playing Miles Morales: Spider-Man and it's so weird the way these games treat the NYPD as unambiguous allies, compared to how most Spider-man media has always treated them.)

Buffy and Giles' interactions feel like a regression after the last four eps developing their relationship. To be fair, Buffy is regressing a little due to having feelings about her life (never a good idea, always suppress those), but it still feels odd.

Looking at Spike's obsession with Buffy here, you can really see the origins of his feelings for her, on both a Watsonian and Doylist level.

Snyder, to Xander: "Whatever comes out of your mouth is a meaningless waste of breath. An airborn toxic event." Huh, is Principal Snyder part of the Buffy fandom? He really sounds like the Buffy fandom here.

Feel like Willow and Oz's big computer company opportunity isn't quite as exclusive as they're making it seem, if two students from a small town are being offered it.

Wonder how you comission the Order of Whatever. Is there a ritual, or do you just call them? Do you pay in money? Magical relics? Virgin sacrifices?

The ice-skating is really pretty. That's it, don't have any critical thoughts, it's just super pretty.

The piano soundtrack here isn't the iconic Buffy/Angel theme, but it sounds a little similar? But more innocent. Is this like an earlier variation? I guess it makes sense - this feels like their first real date beyond coffee at the Bronze; the first time they feel like they're in an actual relationship together. Which is kinda weird when they've already confessed their love, but idk, I guess teenagers and vampires are like that.

"Kill as many of these assassins as you want, it won't make any difference. They won't stop. Unless you kill three of them, then they'll stop and never come back. But otherwise? They're completely unstoppable."

Has Buffy been to Angel's place before? It looks significantly nicer than where he was staying in 'Angel'. Fits with the sense that he's gradually learning to be a person. I do wonder how she knows where he lives, though. Like, that can happen off screen, but first time at his place seems like a significant step?

And now Xander has named the Scooby Gang the Scooby Gang! If you don't like the name, blame him. (The writing of Cordelia in this scene feels very Season One though. Not great.)

And Kendra's finally here! Man, these episodes are really paying tribute to Chris Claremont with this accent.

Harrow, after surviving multiple assassinations attempts and not sleeping for six days:

hello guys it's me miss consistent art style!!! wrestling AU????? sorry i am smashing my 2 current interests together as ya do, gideons trying to be a cool pro wrestler and harrow is her manager

The Harrowhark: The narrator had brain surgery done to make themself an unreliable narrator, and that's the least weird thing that's going on.

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

In Reptile Boy, once again the Angel relationship takes a step forward in an episode about older sexual predators preying on high-schoolers; like Teacher's Pet, the appeal of an older partner is recognized and questioned, and the dangers they represent are confronted. And Angel continues to stress the age difference between him and Buffy as a problem. I really didn't pay much attention to it when I was younger, but the show is way more aware of the issues here than I realised.

Also, yeah, the "When I kiss you I want to die," line is a complete non-sequiter - hell, they've barely even kissed. It might make some sense in Season 3, but it really doesn't fit where they are at this point in the series, and it really sounds way more like a reason to end a relationship than to begin one.

There is however a much more natural connection to her death drive when she expresses a desire to be swept up in an out-of-control romance - it's the "Seize the day, because tomorrow you might be dead" thing again. She wants to embrace passion now without regard for any possible consequences, because on some level she's deeply aware that she might not live to see those consequences; and if she denies herself now, she might not live to see real passion. I'd argue that both her vampire romances are defined by her inability to imagine a future for herself, simply taking whatever love or pleasure she can get right now - because the present is all that she can really believe in.

In general, I'm noticing a lot of Faith-in-Buffy on this rewatch that I missed on previous watches. 'Prophecy Girl' has a lot of it (after she dies, but also her smile while she's fighting vamps at the start of the episode), and obviously Buffy in 'When She Was Bad' is full of Faith.

And now, in 'What's My Line pt. 2', it's astonishing how much Buffy is Faith to Kendra. The way she provokes her, tries to bring out the passion in her - it's so Faith, so much a mirror of Buffy and Faith's relationship, with Buffy in the Faith roll. Just, you know, less homoerotic.

... I mean, it's still pretty homoerotic. Just... less so.